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DISCOURSE 
 
 
 facultt^%tudentsp4nd alumni 
 
 OF 
 
 DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, 
 
 ON 
 
 THE DAY PRECEDING COMMENCEMENT, JULY 27, 1853, 
 
 COMMEMORATIVE OF 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTEK. 
 
 BY 
 
 RUFUS Clio ATE. 
 
 EIGHTH THOUSAND. 
 
 BOSTON AND CAMBRIDGE: 
 JAMES MUNROE AND COMPANY. 
 
 1853. 
 
Ki^i-' 
 
 .WfCs^^ 
 
 Entered occording to Act of Conjrros?, in the year 1853, by 
 
 JAMKS MUNHOE AND COMl'ANV, 
 
 111 tiio Clerk's OfTicc of tlio District Court of the DUtrict of Jlossachiisetta. 
 
 r A M II i; I i> (i K : 
 
 ALU^' AM) JAKMIAM, 1'U1NTEK8. 
 
DISCOURSE. 
 
 It would be a strange neglect of a beautiful and 
 approved custom of the schools of learning, and of one 
 of the most pious and appropriate of the offices of liter- 
 ature, if the college in which the intellectual life of 
 Daniel Webster began, and to which his name imparts 
 charm and illustration, should give no formal expression 
 to her grief in the common sorrow ; if she should not 
 draw near, of the most sad, in the procession of the 
 bereaved, to the tomb at the sea, nor find, in all her 
 classic shades, one affectionate and grateful leaf to set 
 in the garland with which they have bound the brow of 
 her child, the mightiest departed. Others mourn and 
 praise him by his more distant and more general titles 
 to fame and remembrance ; his supremacy of intellect, 
 his statesmanship of so many years, his eloquence of 
 reason and of the heart, his love of country incorrupti- 
 ble, conscientious, and ruling every hour and act ; that 
 greatness combined of genius, of character, of manner, 
 of place, of achievement, which was just now among us, 
 and is not, and yet lives still and evermore. You come, 
 his cherishing mother, to own a closer tie, to indulge an 
 emotion more personal and more fond, — grief and exul- 
 tation contending for mastery, as in the bosom of the 
 desolated parent, whose tears could not hinder him from 
 exclaiming, " I would not exchange my dead son for any 
 living one of Christendom." 
 
Many places in uur Anie-iican world have spoken his 
 eulo^'V. To all places the service was befitting, lor '• his 
 renown, is it not of the treasures of the whole country ?" 
 To .some it belonged, with a strong local propriety, to 
 discharge it. In the halls of Congress, where the maje;*- 
 tic form seems ever to stand and the deep tones to linger, 
 the decorated scene of his larger labors and most dillU- 
 sivc glory; in the courts of law, to whose gladsome light 
 he loved to return, — putting on again the robes of that 
 profession ancient as magistracy, noble as virtue, neces- 
 sary as justice, — in which lie found the beginning of 
 his honors; in Faneuil Hall, whose air breathes and 
 burns of him ; in the commercial cities, to whose pursuits 
 his diplomacy secured a peaceful sea; in the cities of 
 the inland, around whom his capacious public aflections, 
 anjl wise discernment, aimed ever to develop the un- 
 counted resources of that other, and that larger, and that 
 newer America ; in the pulpit, whose place among the 
 higher inlluences which exalt a state, our guide in lite, 
 our consolation in death, he appreciated profoundly, and 
 vindicated by weightiest argument and testimony, of 
 whose ofhccs, it is among the fittest, to mark and point 
 the moral of the great things of the world, the excellency 
 of dignity, and tlie exoelk'ncy of power passing away 
 as the pride of the wave, — passing from our eye to 
 take on innnortality ; in these places, and such as these, 
 there seemed a reason beyond, and other, than the uni- 
 versal calamity, for such honors of the grave. But if 
 Ko, how fit a place is this lor such a service! AVe arc 
 among the scenes where the 3outh of Webster awoke 
 first, and fidly, to the life of the mind. We stand, as it 
 were, at the sources, physical, social, moral, intelKi'tual, 
 of that exceeding greatness, t^ome now here saw that 
 youth. Almost it was yours, Kilum jHirnim videre. 
 
Some, one of his instructors certainly, some possibly of 
 his class mates, or nearest college friends, some of the 
 books he read, some of the apartments in which he 
 studied, are here. We can almost call up from their 
 habitation in the past, or in the flmcy, the whole spiritual 
 circle which environed that time of his life ; the opinions 
 he had embraced ; the theories of mind, of religion, of 
 morals, of philosophy, to which he had surrendered him- 
 self; the canons of taste and criticism which he had 
 accei^ted ; the great authors whom he loved best ; the 
 trophies which began to disturb his sleep ; the facts of 
 history which he had learned, believed, and begun to 
 interpret ; the shapes of hope and fear in which imagi- 
 nation began to bring before him the good and evil of 
 the future. Still the same outward world is around you, 
 and above you. The sweet and solemn flow of the river 
 gleaming through intervale here and there ; margins 
 and samples of the same old woods, but thinned and re- 
 tiring ; the same range of green hills yonder, tolerant 
 of culture to the top, but shaded then by primeval 
 forests, on whose crest the last rays of sunset lingered ; 
 the summit of Ascutney ; the great northern light that 
 never sets ; the constellations that walk around, and 
 watch the pole ; the same nature, undecayed, unchang- 
 ing, is here. Almost, the idolatries of the old paganism 
 grow intelligible. " 3Iagnorum flumimim capita veneranmr,'' 
 exclaims Seneca. " Siibita et ex ahrupto vasti aninis erupiio 
 aras Jiahet ! " "We stand at the fountain of a stream ; we 
 stand rather at the place where a stream, sudden, and 
 from hidden springs, bursts to light ; and whence we can 
 follow it along and down, as we might our own Con- 
 necticut, and trace its resplendent pathway to the sea ; 
 and we venerate, and would almost build altars here. 
 If I may adapt the lofty language of one of the admirers 
 
 1* 
 
c 
 
 of William Pitt, wc come nfitiirally to this place, as if we 
 could thus recall every circumstance of .splL'n(h(l prepara- 
 tion which contrihuted to fit the great man fur the scene 
 of his lAoTv. We come, as if better here than elsewhere, 
 "we could watch, fold by fidd, the bracing on of his 
 Vulcan ian panoply, and observe with pleased anxiety, 
 the Icadin*' forth of that chariot wliich, borne on irre- 
 sistil)le wheels, and drawn by steeds of immortal race, is 
 to crush the necks of the mighty, and sweep away the 
 serried strenn-th of armies." 
 
 And therefore it were fitter that I should ask of you, 
 than speak to you, concerning him. Little indeed any- 
 where can be added now to that wealth of eulogy that 
 has been heaped upon his tomb. Before he died even, 
 renowned in two hemispheres, in ours he seemed to be 
 known with a universal nearness of knowledge. He 
 walked so long and so conspicuously before the general 
 eye ; his actions, his opinions, on all things, which had 
 been largo enough to agitate the public mind for the 
 last thirty years and more, had had importance and con- 
 se(iwences so remarkable — anxiously waited for, pas- 
 sionately canvassed, not adopted always into the parti- 
 cular measure, or deciding the particular vote of gov- 
 ernment or the country, yet sinking deep into the rea- 
 son of the peo[)le — a stream of inlluence whose fruits it 
 is yet too soon for jiolitie-al ])liilosophy to appreciate 
 completely ; an impression of his extraordinary intel- 
 lectual endowments, and of their peculiar superiority 
 ill that most imposing and inteHigiI)le of all forms of 
 manifestation, the moving of others' minds by speech — 
 this impression had grown so universal and lixed, and it 
 had kindled curiosity to hear him and read him, so wide 
 and .Mj largely indulged; his individuality altogether 
 was so ab.solute and so pronounced, the force of will no 
 
less than the power of genius ; the exact type and fash- 
 ion of his mincl, not less than its general magnitude, 
 were so distinctly shown through his musical and trans- 
 parent style ; the exterior of the man, the grand mystery 
 of brow and eye, the deep tones, the solemnity, the 
 sovereignty, as of those who would build States, " where 
 every power and every grace did seem to set its seal," 
 had been made, by personal observation, by description, 
 by the exaggeration even of those who had felt the 
 spell, by art, the daguerreotype, and picture, and statue, 
 so familiar to the American eye, graven on the memory 
 like the Washington of Stuart; the narrative of the 
 mere incidents of his life had been so often told — by 
 some so authentically, and with such skill — and had 
 been so literally committed to heart, that when he died 
 there seemed to be little left but to say when and how 
 his change came ; w4th v/hat dignity, withT v^hat posses- 
 sion of himself, with vvhat loving thought for others, 
 with what gratitude to God,, uttered with unfaltering 
 voice, that it was appointed to him there to die ; to say 
 how thus, leaning on the rod and staff of the promise, 
 he took his way into the great darkness undismayed, till 
 death should be swallowed uj) of life ; and then to relate 
 how they laid him in that simple grave, and turning and 
 pausing and joining their voices to the voices of the sea, 
 bade him hail and farewell. 
 
 And yet I hardly know what there is in public biog- 
 raphy, what there is in literature, to be compared, in its 
 kind, with the variety and beauty and adequacy of the 
 series of discourses through which the love and grief, 
 and deliberate and reasoning admiration of America for 
 this great man, have been uttered. Little, indeed, there 
 would be for me to say, if I were capable of the light 
 ambition of proposing to omit all which others have said 
 
8 
 
 OH tliis tlionie before, — little to add if I sought to say 
 anv tliin;^ wliollv new. 
 
 I have thought, perhaps the place "where I was to 
 speak suggested the topic, that before we approach 
 the ultimate and historical greatness of Mr. Webster, in 
 its two chiff departments, and attempt to appreciate by 
 what (pialities of genius and character, and what succes- 
 sion of action he attained it, there might be an interest 
 in goiug back of all this, so to sa}', and pausing a few 
 moments upon his youth. 1 include in that designation 
 the period from his birth, ou the eighteenth day of Jan- 
 uary, 17S2, until 1805, when, twenty-three years of age, 
 he declined the clerkship of his f\ither's court, and dedi- 
 cated himself irrevocably to the profession of the law, 
 and the chances of a summons to less or more of public 
 lifi'. Thc-o twenty-three years we shall call the youth 
 of Wcl)ster. Its incidents are few and well known, and 
 need not lonu^ detain us. 
 
 Until May, 170G, beyond the close of his fourteenth 
 year, he lived at home, attending the schools of masters 
 Chase and Tappan, successively; at work sometimes 
 and sometimes at ulav like anv bov ; but finding 
 already, as few beside him did, the stiuudations and the 
 food of intellectuid life in the social library; drinking 
 in, luiawares, from the moral and physical aspects about 
 him, the lesson and the power of contention and self- 
 trust ; and learninii: how nuich fj-rander than the forest 
 ])ending to the long storm ; or the silver and cherishing 
 Merrimack swollen to inundation, and turning, as love 
 become madness, to ravage the subject intervale; or old 
 woods sullenly retiring Ijefore axe and fire — learning 
 to feel how nuich ij-rauder than these was the comintr in 
 of civili/ation as there he saw it, courage, labor, patience, 
 plain living, heroical acting, high thinking, beautiful 
 
9 
 
 feeling, the fear of Gocl, love of country, and neighbor- 
 hood, and family, and all that form of human life of 
 which his father, and mother, and sisters, and brother, 
 were the endeared exemplification. In the arms of that 
 circle, on parent knees, or later, in intervals of work or 
 play, the future American Statesman acquired the idea 
 of country, and became conscious of a national tie and a 
 national life. There and then, something, glimpses, a 
 little of the romance, the sweet and bitter memories of 
 a soldier and borderer of the old colonial time and war, 
 opened to the large dark eyes of the child ; memories 
 of French and Indians stealing up to the very place 
 where the story was telling ; of men shot down at the 
 plough, within sight of the old log house ; of the mas- 
 sacre at Fort William Henry ; of Stark, of Howe, of 
 Wolfe filling in the arms of victory ; and then of the 
 next age, its grander scenes and higher names ; of the 
 father's part at Bennington and White Plains ; of La- 
 fayette and Washington ; and then of the Constitution, 
 just adopted, and the first President, just inaugurated, 
 with services of public thanksgiving to Almighty God, 
 and the Union just sprung into life, all radiant as morn- 
 ing, harbinger and promise of a brighter day. You have 
 heard how in that season he bought and first read the 
 Constitution on the cotton handkerchief A small can- 
 non, I think his biographers say, was the ominous play- 
 thing of Napoleon's childhood. But this incident reminds 
 us rather of the 3'outhfal Luther, astonished and kindling 
 over the first Latin Bible he ever saw — or the still 
 younger Pascal, permitted to look into the Euclid, to 
 whose sublimities an irresistible nature had secretly at- 
 tracted him. Long before his fourteenth year, the mother 
 first, and then the father, and the teachers and the schools 
 and the little neighborhood, had discovered an extra- 
 
10 
 
 ordinary liopc iu the boy ; ;i purpose, a dreain, not yet 
 confessed, of ;_fivin^' liim an education be^^an to be cher- 
 ished, and in May, 17'J(j, jit the age of a little more than 
 fourteen, he was sent to Exeter. I have mvself heard 
 II gentleman, long a leader of the Essex bar, and emi- 
 nent ill public life, now no more, who was then a pupil 
 at the school, describe his large frame, superb face, 
 immature manners, and rustic dress, surmounted with a 
 student's gown, when first he came; and say, too, how 
 goon and universally his capacity was owned. AVho 
 does not wish that the glorious Buckminster could have 
 foreseen and witnessed the whole greatness, but certainly 
 the renown of eloquence, which were to come to the 
 young stranger, whom, choking,speechless, the great foun- 
 tain of feelings sealed as yet, he tried in vain to encour- 
 age to declaim belbre the unconscious, bright tribes of 
 the school? The inlluences of Exeter on him were 
 excellent, but his stay was brief. In tlic winter of 1T9G 
 he was at home again, and in February, 1707, he was 
 placed under the private tuition, and in the family of, 
 Kev. i\Ir. AV'ood, of Boscawen. It was on the way with 
 his fiither, to the house of Mr. "Wood, that he first heard 
 with astonishment, that the parental love and good 
 sense had resolved on the sacrifice of liivinLT him au 
 education at college. '"I remember," he writes, "the 
 very hill we were ascending, through deep snows, in a 
 New England sleigh, when my father made his purpose 
 known to me. I could not speak. How could he, I 
 thought, with so large a family, and in such narrow cir- 
 cumstances, think of incurring so great an expense for 
 ine ? A warm glow ran all over me, and 1 laid my head 
 oil my father's shoulder and wept." That .speechlessness, 
 that glow, those tears reveal to us what his memory and 
 consciousness could hardly do to him, that already, some- 
 
11 
 
 where, at some hour of day or evening or night, as he 
 read some page, or heard some narrative, or saw some 
 happier schoolfellow set off from Exeter to begin his 
 college life, the love of intellectual enjoyment, the 
 ambition of intellectual supremacy had taken hold of 
 him ; that, when or how he knew not, but before he was 
 aware of it, the hope of obtaining a liberal education 
 and leading a professional life had come to be his last 
 thought before he slept ; his first when he awoke ; and 
 to shape his dreams. Behold in them, too, his wdiole 
 future. That day, that hour, that very moment, from 
 the deep snows of that slow hill he set out on the long 
 ascent that bore him — " no step backward " — to the 
 high places of the world ! He remained under the tui- 
 tion of Mr. Wood until August, 1797, and then entered 
 this college, where he was, at the end of the full term 
 of four years, graduated in 1801. Of that college life 
 you can tell me more than I can tell you. It is the uni- 
 versal evidence that it was distinguished by exemplary 
 demeanor, by reverence for religion, respect for instruc- 
 tors, and observance of law. We hear from all sources, 
 too, that it was distinguished by assiduous and various 
 studies. AVith the exception of one or two branches, 
 for which his imperfect preparation had failed to excite 
 a taste, he is reported to have addressed himself to the 
 prescribed tasks, and to have availed himself of the 
 whole body of means of liberal culture appointed by the 
 government, with decorum and conscientiousness and 
 zeal. We hear more than this. The whole course of 
 traditions concerning his college life is full to prove two 
 facts. The first is, that his reading, general and various 
 far beyond the requirements of the faculty, or the 
 average capacity of that stage of the literary life, was 
 not solid and useful merely, which is vague commenda- 
 
12 
 
 tion, Init it was Fuch as predicted and educated the future 
 statcsumu. In I'lujrlisli liteniturc, its finer parts, its poe- 
 try and tasteful readin<,% 1 mean, he had read much rather 
 than many things, l)ut he had read somewhat. That a 
 young man of his emotional nature, full of eloquent 
 feeling, the germs of a fine taste, the ear for the music 
 of words, the eye for all heauty and all sublimity already 
 in extraordinary measure his, already practising the art 
 of composition, speech, and criticism, should have re- 
 created himself, as we know he did, with Shakespeare, 
 and Pope, and Addison ; with the great romance of 
 Defoe ; with the more recent biographies of Johnson, 
 and his grand imitations of Juvenal ; with the sweet and 
 refined simplicity and abstracted observation of Gold- 
 smith, mingled with sketches of homefelt delight ; with 
 the elegy of Gray, whose solemn touches soothed the 
 thoughts or tested tho consciousness of the last hour; 
 Avith tlic vigorous orij^inality of the then recent Cowper, 
 whom he quoted when ho came home, as it proved, to 
 die — this we should have expected. But I have heard, 
 and believe, that it was to another institution, more aus- 
 tere and characteristic, that his own mind was irresisti- 
 blv and instinctively even then attracted. The conduct 
 ()[' what Locke calls the human understanding ; the limits 
 of human knowledge; the means of coming to the 
 knowledti;c of the different classes of truth ; the laws of 
 thou'dit : the science of proofs which is loij;ic ; the science 
 of morals; the facts of history; the spirit ol' laws; the 
 conduct ;iii(l aims of reasonings in politics — these were 
 the strong meat that announced and began to train the 
 great political thinker and reasoner of a later day. 
 
 1 have heard that he might oftener be found in some 
 solitary seat or wall;, with a volume of Gordon's or IJam- 
 say's Kevolution, or of the Federalist, or of Hume's 
 
13 
 
 History of England, or of his Essays, or of Grotiup, or 
 Puffenclorf, or Cicero, or Montesquieu, or Locke, or 
 Burke, than with Virgil, or Shakespeare, or the Spectator. 
 Of the history of opinions, in the department of philo- 
 sophy, he was already a curious student. The oration 
 he delivered before the United Fraternity, when ho was 
 graduated, treated that topic of opinion, under some 
 aspects, as I recollect from once reading the manuscript, 
 with copiousness, judgment, and enthusiasm; and soidc 
 of his ridicule of the Berkleian theory of the non-ex isl- 
 ence of matter, I well remember, anticipated the sar- 
 casm of a later day on a currency all metallic, and on 
 nullification as a strictly constitutional remedy. 
 
 The other fact, as well established, by all we can g;i- 
 ther of his life in college, is, that the faculty, so trixn-^- 
 cendent afterwards, of moving the minds of men b)- 
 speech, was already developed and effective in a rema liv- 
 able degree. Always there is a best writer and speaker 
 or two in college ; but this stereotyped designation 
 seems wholly inadequate to convey the impression he 
 made in his time. Many, now alive, have said that 
 some of his performances, having regard to his youlii, 
 his objects, his topics, his audience — one on the celebr;i- 
 tion of Independence, one a eulogy on a student much 
 beloved — produced an instant effect, and left a recollec- 
 tion, to which nothing else could be compared ; which 
 could be felt and admitted only, not explained ; but 
 which now they know were the first sweet tones of in- 
 explicable but delightful influence, of that voice, uncon- 
 firmed as yet, and unassured, whose more consummate 
 expression charmed and suspended the soul of a nation. 
 To read these essays now disappoints you somewhat. As- 
 Quintilian says of Ilortensius, Apparet placidssc aliqidd ea 
 diccntc quod legentes non invcnimus. Some spell there was 
 
 2 
 
li 
 
 in the spoken word which thu reader misses. To lliid 
 tlie secret of that spell, you must recall the youth ol" 
 "Webster. IJeloved fondly, and appreciated by that circle, 
 as much as by any audience, larger, more exacting, more 
 various, and more fit, which afterwards he found any- 
 where ; known to be maidy, just, pure, generous, alVec- 
 tionatc; known and felt by his strong will, his high 
 aims, his commanding character, his unconnuon and 
 dillicult studies; In- liad every heart's warmest good 
 wi>]i witjj him wlien he ruse; and then, when — un- 
 checked by any very severe theory of taste, unoppressed 
 by any dread of saying something incompatible with his 
 place and fame, or imecjual to himself — he just un- 
 locked the deep spring of that eloquent feeling, which, 
 in connection with his power of mere intellect, was such 
 a stupendous psychological mystery, and gave heart 
 and soul, not to the conduct of an argument, or the in- 
 vestigation and dis])lay of a trutli of the reason, but to a 
 fervid, beautiful, and prolonged emotion, to grief, to 
 eulogy, to the patri(jtism of scholars — why need we 
 doubt or wonder, as they looked on that presiding brow, 
 the eye large, sail, iinworldl}'. incapable to be fathomed, 
 the lip and chin, whose firmness as of chiselled, perfect 
 marble, profoundest sensibility alone caused ever to 
 triMuble. why wonder at the traditions of the charm 
 which iliv.y owned ; and the fame which they even then 
 predicted ? 
 
 His college life closed in ISOl. For the statement 
 tliat he>had thought of selecting the profes.sion of the- 
 ology, the siu'viving members of his family, his son and 
 his brother-indaw, assure me tliat tlu>re is no foundation. 
 Certainly, he began at once the stuily of the law, and 
 interrupted only ))y the necessity of teaching an acade- 
 m\- a few months, with which he united the recreation 
 
15 
 
 of recording deeds, he prosecuted it at Salisbury in the 
 office of Mr. Thompson, and at Boston in the office of 
 Mr, Gore, until March, 1805, when, resisting the sharp 
 temptation of a clerkship, and an annual salary of fifteen 
 hundred dollars, he was admitted to the bar. 
 
 And so he has put on the robe of manhood, and has 
 come to do the work of life. Of his youth there is no 
 need to say more. It had been pure, happy, strenuous ; 
 in many things privileged. The influence of home, of 
 his father, and the excellent mother, and that noble 
 brother, whom he loved so dearly, and mourned with 
 such sorrow — these influences on his heart, principles, 
 will, aims, were elevated and strong. At an early age, 
 comparatively, the then great distinction of liberal edu- 
 cation was his. His college life was brilliant and without 
 a stain ; and in moving his admission to the bar, Mr. 
 Gore presented him as one of extraordinary promise. 
 
 With prospects bright, upon the world he came — 
 Pure love of virtue, strong desire of fame ; 
 Men watched the way his lofty mind would take, 
 And all foretold the progress he would make. 
 
 And yet, if on some day as that season was drawing to 
 its close, it had been foretold to him, that before his life 
 — prolonged to little more than threescore years and 
 ten — should end, he should see that country, in which 
 he w^as coming to act his part, expanded across a conti- 
 nent; the thirteen States of 1801 multiplied to thirty- 
 one ; the territory of the North-west and the great valley 
 below sown full of those stars of empire ; the Mississippi 
 forded, and the Sabine, and Rio Grande, and the Nueces ; 
 the ponderous gates of the Rocky Mountains opened to 
 shut no more ; the great tranquil sea become our sea ; 
 her area seven times larger, her people five times more 
 
K, 
 
 in number ; tliiit tlirough nil experiences of trial, the 
 ni;:tlness of i)arty, the injustice of foreign powers, the 
 vast enlargement of her borders, the antaLfonisins of 
 infi'rior interest and feeling — the spirit of nationality 
 v.Oidd grow stronger still and more plastic; that the 
 ti«Ic of American feeling would run ever fuller; that 
 Ikt agriculture Mould grow more scientific ; her arts 
 ujore various and instructed, and better rewarded ; her 
 t:ouiinerce winged to a wider and still -wider llight ; that 
 the part she would play in human allaiis would grow 
 nobler ever, and more recognized ; that in this vast 
 growth of national greatness time would be found for 
 th'.- higher necessities of the soul ; that her po})ular and 
 1mm- higher education would go on advancing; that her 
 charities and all her enterprises of philanthropy would 
 go on enlarging ; that her age of lettered glory should 
 fuid its auspicious dawn — and then it had been also 
 foi'ctold him that even so, with her growth and strength, 
 should his fame grow and lie established and cherished, 
 there where she should garner up her heart ; that by 
 long gradations of service and labor he should rise to be, 
 before he should taste of death, of the peerless among 
 her great ones ; that he should win the double honor, 
 and wear the double wreath of professional and public 
 su[)rcmaey ; that he should become her wisest to counsel 
 and her most eloquent to persuade ; that he should come 
 In !;(> called the DcfcHdcr of the Constitution and the 
 pre.-erver of honorable peace; that the "austere glory 
 of s;iflering" to save the Union should be his; that his 
 • u-alh, al the sununit of greatness, on the verge of a 
 ripe and venerable age, should be distinguished, less by 
 the Hags ut half mast on ocean and lake, less by the 
 minute-gun, less by tlu> public procession, and tlie ap- 
 |)oinle(l eulogy, than by sudden paleness overspreading 
 
17 
 
 all faces, by gushing tears, by sorrow, thoughtful, bod- 
 ing, silent, the sense of desolateness, as if renown and 
 grace were dead — as if the hunter's path, and the 
 sailor's in the great solitude of wilderness or sea, hence- 
 forward were more lonely and less safe than before — 
 had this i^rediction been whispered, how calmly had 
 that perfect sobriety of mind put it all aside as a per- 
 nicious or idle dream ! Yet, in the fulfilment of that 
 prediction is told the remaining story of his life. 
 
 It does not come within the plan which I have 
 marked out for this discourse to repeat the incidents of 
 that subsequent history. The more conspicuous are 
 known to you and the whole American world. Minuter 
 details the time does not permit, nor the occasion re- 
 quire. Some quite general views of what he became 
 and achieved ; some attempt to appreciate that intellec- 
 tual power, and force of will, and elaborate culture, and 
 that power of eloquence, so splendid and remarkable, 
 by which he wrought his work ; some tribute to the en- 
 dearing and noble parts of his character; and some 
 attempt to vindicate the political morality by which his 
 public life was guided, even to its last great act, are all 
 that I propose, and much more than I can hope w^orthily 
 to accomplish. 
 
 In coming, then, to consider what he became and 
 achieved, I have always thought it was not easy to lay 
 too much stress, in the first place, on that realization of 
 what might have been regarded incompatible forms of 
 superiority, and that exemplication of what might have 
 been regarded incompatible gifts or acquirements — 
 "rare in their separate excellence, wonderful in their 
 special combination " — which meet us in him every- 
 where. Remark, first, that eminence, rare, if not unpre- 
 cedented, of the first rate, in the two substantially dis- 
 
 9 :i: 
 
18 
 
 tinct nr\(] unkindro*! professions — that of the law, and 
 th.it of |)Ml)lic life. Ill surveying that ultimate ami 
 ntsiljed greatness in -vvliich he stands hefore you in h s 
 lull stature and at his hcst, this douhle and Mended 
 on-.iniMice is the first thing that fixes the eye, and the 
 l;-.'-!. When he died he was first of American lawyers, 
 s\nd first of American statesmen. In both characters he 
 continued — discharging the foremost part in ea(di, 
 (^(•-un to the fallin-j; of the awful curtain. 15oth char- 
 ncters he kept distiiK-t — the habits of mind, tlie forms 
 of rea><oning, the nature of the proofs the style of elo- 
 qiien«-e. Neither hurt nor changed the other. How 
 much his understanding was " quickened and invigora- 
 ti'd"' by the law, I have often heard him acknowledge 
 and explain. But how, in spite of the law, was that 
 mind, l)y other felicity, and other culture, "opened and 
 hberali/ed " also ! How few of what are called the bad 
 intellectual haljits of the bar he carried into the duties 
 of statesmanship ! His interpretation^ of the Consti- 
 tution and of treaties; his expositions of public law — 
 Iiow little do you find in them, wliere, if anywhere, you 
 would expect it, of the mere ingenuity, the moving of 
 '' vermiculate questions," the word-catching, the .scho- 
 lastic subtlety which, in the phrase of liis memorable 
 quotation, 
 
 " Can sever and divide 
 A Iiair *twi.\t north and north-west side," — 
 
 a-'cribed by satire to the profession ; and how much of 
 its truer fimction, and noi)ler power of calling, history, 
 language, the moral sentiment.^ rea.son, common sense, 
 the hiirh spirit of ma'rnanimous nationalitv, to tlie search 
 of Irt.lb ! How little do we find in his politics of au- 
 othei had habit of the profession, the worst "idol of the 
 
19 
 
 cave," a morbid, unreasoning, and regretful passion for 
 the past, that bends and weeps over the stream, running 
 irreversibly, because it will not return, and will not 
 pause, and gives back to vanity every hour a changed 
 and less beautiful face ! We ascribe to him certainly a 
 sober and conservative habit of mind, and such he had. 
 Such a habit the study and practice of the law doubtless 
 does not impair. But his was my Lord Bacon's conser- 
 vatism. He held with him, " that antiquity deserveth 
 this reverence, that men should make a stand thereupon, 
 and discover what is the best way ; but wdien the disco- 
 very is w^ell taken, then to make progression." He 
 would keep the Union according to the Constitution, 
 not as a relic, a memorial, a tradition — not for what it 
 has done, though that kindled his gratitude and excited 
 his admiration — but for what it is now and hereafter 
 to do, when adapted by a Avise practical philosophy to 
 a wider and higher area, to larger numbers, to severer 
 and more glorious probation. Who better than he has 
 grasped and displayed the advancing tendencies and en- 
 larging duties of America ? Who has caught — whose 
 eloquence, whose genius, wdiose counsels, have caught 
 more adequately the genuine inspiration of our destiny? 
 Who has better expounded by what moral and pruden- 
 tial policy, by what improved culture of heart and rea- 
 son, by what true worship of God, by what good faith 
 to all other nations, the dangers of that destiny may be 
 disarmed, and its large promise laid hold on ? 
 
 And while the lawyer did not hurt the statesman, the 
 statesman did not hurt the lawyer. More ; the states- 
 man did not modify, did not unrobe, did not tinge, the 
 lawyer. It would not be to him that the epigram could 
 have application, where the old Latin satirist nuikes the 
 client complain that his lawsuit is concerning trcs cajjcUo) 
 
20 
 
 — tlirco kills; ami that his advocate "with large disdain 
 <»r tlRiii, is haranguing \vith loud voice and l)()th hands, 
 ahout the slaughters of Canna', the war of Mithridates, 
 till' jjorjuries of Ilannihal. I could never detect that in 
 his discussions of law he did not just as much recognize 
 authority, just as nxiously .«eek for adjudications old 
 and ni'W in his favor, just as closely sift them and col- 
 late them, that he nii'dit hring them to his side if he 
 coiiM. or leave them amhitxuous and harndess if he could 
 not ; that he did not just as rigorously ohserve the pe- 
 culiar mode which that science employs in passing from 
 the known to the unknown, the j)eculiar logic of the 
 law, as if he had never investigated any other than 
 le^ral truth hv anv other organon than legal logic in his 
 life. Peculiarities of IcL^d reasoning he certainlv had, 
 helonging to the peculiar structure and vast power of 
 his mind ; more original thought, more discourse of prin- 
 ciples, less of that more su])tlety of analysis, which is not 
 restrained hy good sense, and the higher power of duly 
 tempering and comhiuing one truth in a practical science 
 with other truths, from ahsurdity or mischief, but still it 
 was all strict and exact leual reasoning. The long habit 
 of emjdoying the more popular methods, the probable 
 and plausible conjectures, the approximations, the com- 
 ])romises of deliberative discussion, did not seem to have 
 left the least trace on his vocabulary, or his reasonings, 
 or his demeanor. No doubt, as a part of his whole cul- 
 ture, it helpiMl to give enlargement and general power 
 and elevation of mind; but the sweet stream passed 
 under the bitter sea, the bitter sea pressed on the sweet 
 stream, and each flowed innningled, unchanged in taste 
 or color. 
 
 1 have said that this double eminence is rnrc, if not 
 unprecedented. AVe do no justice to Mr. AVebster, if 
 
21 
 
 "sre do not keep this ever in mind. How many exem- 
 plifications of it do you find in British public life ? The 
 Earl of Chatham, Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Windham, Pitt, 
 Grattan, Canning, Peel — were they also, or any one, 
 the acknowledo-ed leader in Westminster Hall or on the 
 circuit ? And, on the other hand, would you say that 
 the mere i arliamentary career of Mai sfield, or Thurlow, 
 or Dunning, or Erskine, or Camden, or Curran, would 
 compare in duration, constancy, variety of effort, the 
 range of topics discussed, the fulness, extent, and influ- 
 ence of the discussion, the influence exerted, the space 
 filled, the senatorial character completely realized — 
 with his ? In our own public life it is easier to find a 
 parallel. Great names crowd on us in each department ; 
 greater, or more loved, or more venerable, no annals 
 can show. But liow few, even here, have gathered t-.e 
 double wreath, and the blended fame ! 
 
 And now, having observed the fact of this combina- 
 tion of quality and excellence scarcely compatible, in- 
 spect for a moment each by itself 
 
 The professional life of Mr. Webster began in the 
 spring of 1805. It may not be said to have ended until 
 he died ; but I do not know that it happened to him to 
 appear in court, for the trial of a cause, after his argu- 
 ment of the Goodyear patent for improvements in 
 the preparation of India-rubber, in Trenton, ia March, 
 1852. 
 
 There I saw, and last heard him. The thirty-four 
 years which had elapsed since, a member of this col- 
 lege, at home for health, I first saw^ and heard him in 
 the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, in the county of 
 Essex, defending Jackman, accused of the robbery of 
 Goodrich, had in almost all things changed him. The 
 raven hair, the vigorous, full frame and firm tread, the 
 
oo 
 
 oininent ])ut povorc 1)c:uitv of the couiiteiianco, not vut 
 sealcil ^vitll tin- miildle a^o of man, the exuberant de- 
 monstration of all sorts of power, which so marked 
 him at first — for these, as onee they were, I exjjlored 
 in vain. Vet how far higher was the interest that at- 
 tended liim now : his seventy years robed, as it uere, 
 vith lionor anil with love, Avitli associations of great 
 pervi<-e done to the State, and of great fame gathered 
 and safe ; and then the ])erfect master}' (^f the cause in its 
 legal and .scientific principle^, and n all its facts; the 
 admirable clearness and order in which his propositions 
 ■were advanced successively ; the power, the occasional 
 high ethical tone, the appropriate eloquence, by which 
 they were made probable and persuasive to the jutlicial 
 reason, these announced the 'eaderof the American bar, 
 •with every faculty and every accomplishment by which 
 he had won that proud title, wholly unimpaired ; the 
 eye not dim nor ihe natui'al force abated. 
 
 1 cannot here and now trace, with any minuteness, 
 the course of X v. AVebster at the bar during these forty- 
 eight years from the opening of his oflice in Boscawen ; 
 nor convey any impression whatever of the aggregate 
 of labor which that course imposed ; or of the intellec- 
 tual power which it exactcMl ; nor indicate the stages 
 of his rise; nor dcliuc the time when his position at the 
 sununit of tiie profession may he said to have become 
 completely vindicated. You know, in general, that he 
 began the ]>racti('e of the law in New Hampshire in the 
 spring of 180') ; that he prosecuted it. here, in its sever- 
 est school, with great diligence, and brilliant success, 
 among rompetitori! of larger experience and of consum- 
 mate abilitv, until ISJC. : that he then removed to Mas- 
 sachusetts, and that then\ in the courts ol' that State, 
 and of other States, and in those of the general govern- 
 

 ment, and especially in the Supreme Court sitting at 
 Washington, he pursued it as the calling hy which he 
 was to earn his daily bread until he died. You know 
 indeed that he did not pursue it exactly as one pursues 
 it who confines himself to an office ; and seeks to do the 
 current and miscellaneous business of a single bar. His 
 professional employment, as I have often heard him say, 
 was very much the preparation of opinions on important 
 questions, presented from every part of the country ; and 
 the trial of causes. This kind of professional life allowed 
 him seasonable vacations; and it accommodated itself 
 somewhat to the exactions of his other and public life. 
 But it was all one long and continued practice of the 
 law; the professional character was never put off ; nor 
 the professional robe long unworn to the last. 
 
 You know, too, his character as a jurist. This topic 
 has been recently and separately treated, with great 
 ability, by one in a high degree competent to the task ; 
 the late learned Chief Justice of New Hampshire, now 
 Professor of Law at Cambridge ; and it needs no addi- 
 tional illustration from me. Yet, let me say, that herein, 
 also, the first thing which strikes you is the union of 
 diverse, and, as I have said, what might have been re- 
 garded incompatible excellences. I shall submit it to 
 the judgment of the universal American bar, if a care- 
 fully prepared opinion of Mr. Webster, on any question 
 of law whatever in the whole range of our jurispru- 
 dence, would not be accepted everywhere as of the 
 most commanding authority, and as the highest evi- 
 dence of legal truth? I submit it to that same judg- 
 ment, if for many years before his death, they w^ould not 
 have rather chosen to intrust the maintenance and en- 
 forcement of any important proposition of law what- 
 ever, before any legal tribunal of character whatever, 
 
24 
 
 to his best exertion oi' liis farultie?, than to any other 
 al)ility which the whole wealtli of the prolession could 
 supply ? 
 
 And this alone completes the description of a lawyer 
 and a Ibrensic orator of the first rate; hut it does not 
 complete the description of his professional character. 
 By the side of all this, so to speak, there was that whole 
 class of (pialilies which made him fur any description of 
 trial hv iurv whatever, criminal or civil, hv even a 
 more universal assent, foremost. For that form of trial 
 no I'aeulty was unused or needless; but you were most 
 struck there to see the unrivalled leiral reason put off, 
 as it were, and reappear in the form of a robust com- 
 mon sense and elocpient feeling, applying itself to an 
 exciting subject of business ; to see the knowledge of 
 men and life by which the falsehood and veracity of wit- 
 nesses, the probabilities and improbal/dities of transac- 
 tions as sworn to, were discerned in a moment ; the 
 direct, plain, forcible speech ; the consummate narrative, 
 a department which he had particularly cultivated, and 
 in which no man ever excelled him; the easy and per- 
 fect analysis by which he convej'ed his side of the cause 
 to the mind of the jury ; the occasional gush of strong 
 feeliui:, indiLcnation. or pitv ; the masterlv, yet natural 
 way, in which all the moral emotions of which his cause 
 was susceptiide, were called to use. the occasional sove- 
 reignty of dictation to which his convictions seemed 
 sj)()ntaneously to rise. His ellbrts in tiials by jury com- 
 pose a more traditional and evanescent part of his pro- 
 fessional rei)ntation than his arguments on (piestions of 
 law; init 1 ahnost think they were his mightiest profes- 
 sional display.'^, or displays of any kind, after all. 
 
 One such 1 stood in a relation to witness with a com- 
 paratively easy curiosity, and yet with intimate and pro- 
 
25 
 
 fessional knowledge of all the embarrassments of the 
 case. It was the trial of John Francis Knapp, charged 
 with being present, aiding, and abetting in the murder 
 of Joseph White, in which Mr. Webster conducted the 
 prosecution for the Commonwealth ; in the same year 
 with his reply to Mr. Hayne, in the Senate ; and a few 
 months later ; and when I bring to mind the incidents 
 of that trial : the necessity of proving that the prisoner 
 was near enough to the chamber in which the murder 
 was being committed by another hand to aid in the act ; 
 and was there with the intention to do so, and thus in 
 point of law did aid in it — because mere accessorial 
 guilt was not enough to convict him ; the difficulty of 
 proving this — because the nearest point to which the 
 evidence could trace him was still so distant as to war- 
 rant a pretty formidable doubt whether mere curiosity 
 had not carried him thither ; and whether he could in 
 any useful, or even conceivable manner have cooperated 
 with the actual murderer, if he had intended to do so ; 
 and because the only mode of rendering it probable that 
 he was there w^ith a purpose of guilt was by showing 
 that he was one of the parties to a conspiracy of mur- 
 der, whose very existence, actors, and objects, had to 
 be made out by the collation of the widest possible 
 range of circumstances — some of them pretty loose — 
 and even if he was a conspirator it did not quite neces- 
 sarily follow that any active participation was assigned 
 to him for his part, any more than to his .brother, who, 
 confessedly took no such part — the great number of 
 witnesses to be examined and cross-examined, a duty 
 devolving wholly on him; the quick and sound judg- 
 ment demanded and supplied to determine what to use 
 and what to reject of a mass of rather unmanageable 
 materials; the points in the law of evidence to be 
 
 3 
 
2G 
 
 argued — in tlic course of whicli ho luadc an appeal to 
 the Ik'iuh on the complete iinpunity which the rejection 
 of the ])nsoner's confes.>^ion would give to the murder, 
 in a .style of dignity and energy, I should rather say, of 
 grandeur which I never heard him equal hefore or after; 
 the high ahility and fidelity with which every part of 
 the defence was conducted; and the great final sum- 
 ming up to which he brought, and in which he needed, 
 the utmost exertion of every faculty he possessed to 
 persuade the jury that the obligation of that duty the 
 sense of which, he said, "pursued us ever: it is omni- 
 present like the Deity : if we take the wings of the 
 morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, 
 duty performed or duty violated is still with us for our 
 hap})iness or misery" — to persuade them that this obli- 
 gation demanded that on his proofs they should convict 
 the prisoner : to which he brought first the profound 
 belief of his guilt, without which he could not have 
 prosecuted him ; then skill consunnnate in inspiring them 
 with a desire or a willingness to be instrumental in de- 
 tecting that guilt; and to lean on him in the eflbrt to 
 detect it ; then every resource of professional ability to 
 break the force of the propositions of the defence, and 
 to establish the truth of his own: inferring a conspiracy 
 to which the prisoner was a party, from circumstances 
 acutely ridiculed by the able counsel opposing him as 
 " Stufl'" — l)ut woven bv him into strong and uniform 
 tissue ; and then bridging over from the conspiracy to 
 the not. very necessary inference th;it the particular con- 
 spirat<n' on trial Ava< at his ])ost, in execution of it. to 
 aid and aljct — the picture of the murder with which 
 he begun — not for rhetorical display, but to inspire 
 soleuuiity, and horror, and a desire to detect and punish 
 for justice and for security; the sublime exhortation to 
 
27 
 
 duty with wliicli he closed — resting on the luiiversalit}^, 
 and anthoritativeness and eternity of its obhgation — 
 which left in every juror's mind the impression that it 
 was the duty of convicting in this particular case the 
 sense of which would be with him in the hour of death, 
 » and in the judgment, and forever — with these recollec- 
 tions of that trial I cannot help thinking it a more diffi- 
 cult and higher effort of mind than that more famous 
 " Oration for the Crown." 
 
 It would be not unpleasing nor inappropriate to pause, 
 and recall the names of some of that succession of com- 
 petitors by whose rivalry the several stages of his pro- 
 fessional life were honored and exercised ; and of some 
 of the eminent judicial persons who presided over that 
 various and high contention. Time scarcely permits 
 this; but in the briefest notice I must take occasion to 
 say that perhaps the most important influence — cer- 
 tainly the most important early influence — on his pro- 
 fessional traits and fortunes, was that exerted by the 
 great general abilities, impressive character, and legal 
 genius of Mr. Mason. Who he was you all know. How 
 much the jurisprudence of New Hampshire owes to 
 Mm ; what deep traces he left on it ; how much he did 
 to promote the culture, and to preserve the integrity of 
 the old common law ; to adapt it to your wants, and 
 your institutions ; and to construct a system of practice 
 by which it was administered wdth extraordinary energy 
 and effectiveness for the discovery of truth, and the 
 enforcement of right; you of the legal profession of 
 this State will ever be proud to acknowledge. Another 
 forum in a neighboring Commonwealth, witnessed and 
 profited by the last labors, and enlarged studies of the 
 consummate lawyer and practiser ; and at an earlier day 
 the Senate, the country, had recognized his vast practi- 
 
28 
 
 cal \vi>«l(jiii and saj^acitv, tlif IVuit of tlie liif^licst intcllec- 
 tiial (.'iidowiiiciits, matured tliouglit, and profound obser- 
 vation ; his fidelity to the obhgations of that party con- 
 nection to wliieh he was attached ; his fidelity, through 
 all his life, still more conspicuous, and still more admi- 
 rable, to the higher obligations of a considerate and en- 
 larged patriotism. He had been more than fourteen 
 years at the bar, when Mr. Webster came to it; he dis- 
 cerned instantly what manner of man his youthful com- 
 petit<jr was; he admitted him to his intimate friendship ; 
 and paid him the unequivocal compliment, and did him 
 the real kindness of compelling him to the utmost exer- 
 tion of his diligence and capacity by calling out against 
 him all his own. " The proprieties of this occasion " — 
 these are Mr. AVebster's words in presenting the resolu- 
 tions of the Suflblk Bar upon Mr. Mason's death — '• com- 
 pel me, with whatever reluctance, to refrain from the 
 indulgence of the personal feelings which arise in my 
 heart upon the death of one with whom I have culti- 
 vated a sincere, affectionate, and unbroken friendship 
 from the day when I commenced my own profe.-^sional 
 career to the closin<i: hour of his lite. I will not sav of 
 the advantages which I have derived from his intercourse 
 and conversation all that Mr. Fox said of Edmund Burke, 
 but I am bound to say, that of my own professional dis- 
 cipline and attainments, whatever they ma}^ be, I owe 
 much to that close attention to the discharge of my du- 
 ties which I was compelled to pay for nine successive 
 years, from day to day, by Mr. ^lason's efforts and argu- 
 nu'uts at the same bar. 1 must have been unintelligent 
 indeed, not to have learned somethin<j; from the constant 
 displays of that power which I had so nuich occasion to 
 sec and ivv].'" 
 
 I reckon next to his, for the earlier time of his life, 
 
29 
 
 the influence of the learned and accomplished Smith ; 
 and next to these — some may believe greater — is that 
 of Mr. Justice Story. That extraordinary person had 
 been admitted to the bar in Essex in Massachusetts in 
 1801 j and he was engaged in man}^ trials in the county 
 of Rockingham in th's State before Mr. AYebster had as- 
 sumed his own established position. Their political 
 opinions differed ; but such was his affluence of knowl- 
 edge ah^eady ; such his stimulant enthusiasm ; he was 
 burning with so incredible a passion for learning, and 
 fame, that the influence on the still young Webster was 
 instant -, and it was great and permanent. It was re- 
 ciprocal too ; and an intimacy began that attended the 
 whole course of honor through which each, in his several 
 sphere, ascended. Parsons he saw, also, but rarely ; and 
 Dexter oftener, and with more nearness of observation, 
 while 3'et laying the foundation of his own mind and 
 character ; and he shared largely in the universal admi- 
 ration of that time, and of this, of their attainments, and 
 genius, and diverse greatness. 
 
 As he came to the grander practice of the national 
 bar, other competition was to be encountered. Other 
 names begin to solicit us; other contention; higher 
 prizes. It would be quite within the proprieties of this 
 discourse to remember the parties, at least, to some of 
 the higher causes, by wdiich his ultimate professional 
 fame was built up ; even if I could not hope to convey 
 any impression of the novelty and difficulty of the 
 questions which they involved, or of the positive addi- 
 tion which the argument, and judgment, made to the 
 treasures of our constitutional and general jurispru- 
 dence. But there is only one of which I have time to 
 say any thing, and that is the case which established the 
 inviolability of the charter of Dartmouth College by the 
 
 3 =="• 
 
q 
 
 
 
 Legislature of the State of New Ilamjishire. Acts of 
 the I^^gislature, pa&scd in the year 1810, hail invatlcd 
 its charter. A .suit was brought to test theu- validity. 
 It was tried in the Supreme Court of the State ; a judg- 
 ment was given against the college, and this was ap- 
 j)ealed to the Supreme Federal Court by writ of error. 
 Upon .solemn argument the charter was decided to be a 
 contract whose obligation a State may not impair ; the 
 acts were decided to be invalid as an attempt to impair 
 it, and you hold your charter under that decision to-day. 
 How much Mr. Webster contributed to that result, how 
 much the effort advanced his own distinction at the bar, 
 you all know. Well, as if of yesterday, I remember 
 how it was written home from AVashington, that '• Mr. 
 AVebster closed a legal argument of great power by a 
 peroration which charmed and melted his audience." 
 Often since 1 have heard vague account.s, not much more 
 satisfactory, of the speech and the scene. I was aware 
 that the report of his argument, as it was published, did 
 not contain the actual peroration, and I supposed it lost 
 forever. By the great kindness of a learned and ex- 
 cellent i)erson, Dr. Chauncy A. ( ioodrich, a professor in 
 Yale College, with whom I had not the honor of ac- 
 quaintance, although his virtues, accomplishments, and 
 most useful life, were well known to me, I can read to 
 you the words whose power, when those lips spoke them, 
 so many owned, although they could not repeat them. 
 As those lips .spoke them, we shall hear them nevermore, 
 but no utterance can extinguish their simple, sweet, and 
 perfect jjcauty. Let me first, l)ring the general scene 
 before you, and then 30U will hear the rest in Mr. 
 Goodrich's description. It was in 181S. in the tliirty- 
 scventh year of Mr. AVebster's age. It was adihe.>^.>^ed to 
 a tril)unal presided over by Marshall, assisted by AVash- 
 
31 
 
 ington, Livingston, Johnson, Stoiy, Todd, and Duvall — 
 a tribunal unsurpassed on earth in all that gives llustra- 
 tion to a bench of law, and sustained and venerated by 
 a noble bar. He had called to his aid the ripe and 
 beautiful culture of Hopkinson; and of his opponents 
 was William Wirt, then and ever of the leaders of the 
 bar, who, with faculties and accomplishments fitting him 
 to adorn and gu le public life, abounding in deep pro- 
 fessional learning, and in the most various and elegant 
 acquisitions — a ripe and splendid orator, made so by 
 genius and the most assiduous culture — consecrated all 
 to the service of the law. It was before that ribunal, 
 and in presence of an audience select ; nd critical, among 
 whom, it is to be borne in mind, were some graduates of 
 the colleo'e, who were attendins; to assist asrainst her, 
 that he opened the cause. I gladly proceed in the 
 w^ords of Mr. Goodrich. 
 
 " Before going to Washington, which I did chiefly for 
 the sake of hearing Mr. Webster, I was told that, in 
 arguing the case at Exeter, New Hampshire, he had left 
 the whole court room in tears at the conclusion of his 
 speech. This, I confess, struck me unpleasantly — any 
 attempt at pathos on a purely legal question like this, 
 seemed hardly in good taste. On my way to Washing- 
 ton, I made the acquaintance of Mr. Webster. We were 
 together for several days in Philadelphia, at the house 
 of a common friend ; and as the college question was 
 one of deep interest to literary men, we conversed often 
 and largely on the subject. As he dwelt upon the lead- 
 ing points of the case, in terms so calm, simple, and pre- 
 cise, I said to myself more than once, in reference to the 
 story I had heard, 'Whatever may have seemed ap- 
 propriate in defending the college at liome, and on her 
 
32 
 
 own ^noiiiid, til If uill be no appeal tu the feelings of 
 .h cige Marshall ami his associates at Washington.' "Phe 
 Su})reine Court of the United States held its session, that 
 M'in y. 11 a moan a; artment of moderate size — the 
 Capitol not having been built after its destruction m 
 I 1!. TIiJ audience, hen he case came on, ^vas 
 therefore small, consistin chielly of legal n en, the clile 
 of the profession throughout the country. Mr, Webster 
 entered upon his argument in the calm tone of easy and 
 dignified conversation. Pis matter -was so completely 
 at his connnand that he scarcely looked at his brief, but 
 Ave ii on lor n ore ihan .'bur Innir- Avith a statement so 
 luminous, and chain of reaso ing so easy to be under- 
 stood, and yet api)roaching so nearly to absolute dem- 
 onstration, that he seemed to carry Avith him every man 
 of his audience Avithout the slightest eflbrt or weariness 
 on either side. It was hardly eloquence, in the strict sense 
 of the term ; it was pure reason. Now and then, for a 
 >entence or two, his eye flashed and his voice swelled 
 into a bolder note, as he uttered some emphatic thought ; 
 but he instantly fell back into the tone of earnest con- 
 versation, which ran throughout the great body of his 
 s])cech. A ^'ngle circumstance will show you the clear- 
 ness and absorbing power of his argument. 
 
 " I ob.^orve 1 t!;at Judge Story, at the open'ng of the 
 ciisc, had prepared himself, pen in hand, as if to take 
 copious minutes. Hour after hour I saw him lixed in 
 the same attitude, but, so far as I could perceive, with 
 not a note on his paper. The argument closed, and J 
 could not ilhcover Ihal he hud lahen a a'uifjle note. Others 
 around me remarked the same thing, and it was among 
 the Oil dil.s of Washington, that a friend spoke to him of 
 the fact with surprise, when the .ludge remarked, 'every 
 thing was so clear, and so ea.sy to remember, that not 
 

 a note seemed necessary, and, in fact, I thought httle or 
 nothing about my notes.' 
 
 " The aro-ument ended. Mr. Webster stood for some 
 moments silent before the Court, while every eye was 
 fixed intently upon him. At length, addressing the 
 Chief Justice, Marshall, he proceeded thus : — 
 
 " * This, Sir, is my case ! It is the case, not merely of 
 that humble institution, it is the c se of every college in 
 our land. It is more. It is the case of every elee- 
 mosynary institution throughout our country — of all 
 those great charities founded by the piety of our ances- 
 tors to alleviate human mise'ry, and scatter blessings 
 along the pathway of life. It is more ! It is, in some 
 sense, the case of every man among us who has pro- 
 perty of wdiich he may be stripped, for the question is 
 simply this : Shall our State Legislature be allowed to 
 take that which is not their own, to turn it from its 
 original use, and apply it to such eiuls or purposes as 
 they, in their discretion, shall see fit ! 
 
 "'Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is 
 weak ; it is in your hands ! I know it is one of the 
 lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You 
 may put it out. But if you do so, you must carry 
 through your work ! You must extinguish, one after 
 another, all those great lights of science which, for more 
 than a century, have thrown their radiance over our 
 land ! 
 
 '" It is. Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, 
 there are those ivho love it .' 
 
 " Here the feelin<2;s which he had thus far succeeded in 
 keeping down, broke forth. His lips quivered ; his firm 
 cheeks trembled with emotion ; his eyes were filled with 
 tears, his voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the 
 utmost simply to gain that mastery over himself which 
 
34 
 
 iniii;lit save liiin from an uninanly burst of fooling. I 
 ■will not attempt to give you the few broken words of 
 tenderness in which he went on to speak of his attach- 
 ment to the college. The whole seemed to be mingled 
 throughout with the recollections of father, mother, 
 brother, and all the trials and privations through which 
 lie had made his way into life. Every one saw that it 
 was wholly unpremeditated, a pressure on his heart, 
 which souLdit relief in words and tears. 
 
 "The court room <luring these two or three minutes 
 presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice 
 Marshall, with his tall and gaunt figure bent over as if 
 to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his 
 cheek expanded with emotion, and eyes suffused with 
 tears ; i\Ir. Justice Washington at his side, -with his small 
 and emaciated frame and countenance more like marble 
 tlian I ever saw on any other human being — leaning 
 forward with an eager, troubled look ; and the remain- 
 der of the Court, at the two extremities, pressing, as it 
 were, toward a single point, while the audience below 
 were wrapping themselves round in closer folds beneath 
 the be ch to catc i each look, and every movement of 
 the speakei's face. If a painter could give us the scene 
 on canvas — those forms and countenances, and Daniel 
 Webster as he then stood in the midst, it would be one 
 of the most touching pictures in the history "of elo- 
 quence. One thing it taught mo, that the pathetic de- 
 pends not merely on the words uttered, but still more 
 on the estimate we put upon him who utters them. 
 There was not one amonii; the stron<i-minded men of 
 that assem1)ly who could think it unmaiiiy to Aveep, 
 when he saw standing before liiai the man who had 
 made sucli iin argument, melted into the tenderness of 
 a child. 
 
35 
 
 " Mr. Webster had now recovered his composure, and 
 fixing his keen eye on the Chief Justice, said, in that 
 deep tone with which he sometimes thrilled the heart of 
 an audience : — 
 
 "'Sir, I know not how others may feel,' (c^lancing at 
 the opponents of the college before him,) *but, for my- 
 self, when I see my alma mater surrounded, like CaBsar 
 in the senate house, by those who are reiterating stab 
 upon stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her 
 turn to me, and say, Et hi quoqiie mi fill I And thou too, my 
 son ! ' 
 
 "He sat down. There was a deathlike stillness 
 throughout the room for some moments ; every one 
 seemed to be slowly recovering himself, and ct mino- 
 gradually back to his ordinary range of thought and 
 feelini;-." 
 
 It was while Mr. Webster was ascendino; throug-h the 
 long gradations of the legal profession to its highest 
 rank, that by a parallel series of display on a stage, and 
 in parts totally distinct, by other studies, thoughts, and 
 actions he rose also to be at his death the irst of Amer- 
 ican Statesmen. The last of the mighty rivals was dead 
 before, and he stood alone. Give this aspect also of his 
 greatness a passing glance. His public lifj beg u in 
 May, 1813, in the House of Representatives in Congress, 
 to which this State had elected him. It ended when he , 
 died. If you except the interval between his removal 
 from New Hampshire and his election in Massachusetts, 
 it was a public life of forty years. By what political 
 morality, and by what enlarged patriotism, embracing 
 the whole country, that life was guided, I shall con- 
 sider hereafter. Let me now fix your attention rather 
 on the magnitude and variety and actual value of the 
 
30 
 
 ^service. Consitler that from the day lie went upon the 
 Conunittee of Foreign Kehitiun-s, in 1813, in time of 
 Avar, and more and more, the longer he Hved and the 
 higlier he ro.se, lie wa^ a man whose great talents and 
 devotion to public duty placed and kept hhn in a po- 
 sition of associated or sole command ; command in 
 the political connection to "which he belonged, com- 
 mand in opposition, command in power; and appreciate 
 the responsibilities which that implies, what care, what 
 prudence, what mastery of the whole ground — ex- 
 acting for the CO duct of a party, as Gibbon says of 
 Fox, abilities and civil discretion equal to the conduct 
 of an empire. Consider the work he did in that ife of 
 forty years — the range of subjects investigated and 
 di.scu.ssed : composing the whole theorj' and practice of 
 our organic and administrative politics, foreign and do- 
 mestic : the vast body of instructive thought he pro- 
 duced and put in possession ol' the country; how much 
 he achieved in Congress as well as at the bar, to fix the 
 true interpretation, as well as to impre.^^s the transcen- 
 dent value of the Constitution itself, a- much altoi::ether 
 as any jurist or statesman since its adoption ; how much 
 to e.<^taljlish in the general mind the great doctrine that 
 the government of the United State ■; is a government 
 proper, estal->lished l>y the people of the States, not a 
 compact between sovereign conuuunilies, — that within 
 its limits it is supreme, and that whether it is within its 
 limits or not, in any given exertion of it.self, is to be 
 determined by the Supreme Court of the United States 
 — the ultiuKite arbiter in the last resort — from which 
 there is no appeal but to revolution; how much he did 
 in the course ol' the di.^cussions which grew out <»f the 
 pro})osed mission to Panama, and, at a later day, out of 
 the removal of the deposits, to \)\arv the executive 
 
department of the government on its true basis, and 
 under its true limitations ; to secure to that department 
 all its just powers on the one hand, and on the other 
 hand to vindicate to the legislative department, and 
 especially to the Senate, all that belong to them ; to 
 arrest the tendencies which he thoug-ht at one time 
 threatened to substitute the government of a single 
 will, of a single person of great force of character and 
 boundless popularity, and of a numerical majorit}^ of 
 the people, told by the head, without intermediate insti- 
 tutions of any kind, judicial or senatorial, in place of 
 the elaborate system of checks and balances, by which 
 the Constitution aimed at a government of laws, and not 
 of men ; how much, attracting less popular attention, 
 but scarcely less important, to complete the great work 
 which experience had shown to be left unfinished by 
 the judiciary act of 1789, by providing for the j)nnish- 
 ment of all crimes against the United States ; how much 
 for securing a safe currency and a true financial system, 
 not only by the promulgation of sound opinions, but by 
 good sj)ecific measures adopted, or bad ones defeated ; 
 how much to develop the vast material resources of the 
 country, and to push forward the planting of the West 
 — not troubled by any fear of exhausting old States — 
 by a liberal policy of public lands, by vindicating the 
 constitutional power of Congress to make or aid in 
 making large classes of internal improvements, and by 
 acting on that doctrine uniformly from 1813, when- 
 ever a road was to be built, or a rapid suppressed, 
 or a canal to be opened, or a breakwater or a light- 
 house set up above or below the flow of the tide, if 
 so far beyond the ability of a single State, or of so 
 wide utility to commerce and labor as to rise to the 
 rank of a work general in its influences — another tie 
 
 4 
 
38 
 
 of union because another proof of the beneficence of 
 union ; how much to jiidttM-t the vast mechanical au'l 
 nianufucturini^ interests of the country, a value of many 
 hun<h-e(ls of millions — after liaving been lured into 
 existence aLCiiinst liis counsels, a^rainst his seience of 
 political economy, by a policy ol" artificial encourage- 
 ment — from being sacrificed, and the pursuits and plans 
 of large regions and communities broken up, and the 
 acquired skill of the country squandered by a sudden 
 and capricious ^vithdra^val of the promise of the govern- 
 ment ; how much lor the right performance of the most 
 delicate :iud diflicult of all tasks, the ordering of the 
 foreign aflliirs of :i nation, free, sensitive, self-conscious, 
 recognizing, it is true, public law and a morality of the 
 iState, binding on the conscience of the State, yet aspir- 
 ing to power, eminence, and conunand, its whole frame 
 filled full and all on fire witli American feeling, sympa- 
 thetic Avith lil)erty everywhere — how much for the 
 TvAit orderin<i: of the foreisi-n affairs of such a State — 
 aiming in all his policy, from his speech on the Greek 
 question in 1823, to his letters to M. llulsemann in 
 1850, to occupy the high, plain, yet dizzy ground which 
 separates influence from intervention, to avow and pro- 
 mulgate warm good will to humanity, Avherever striving 
 to be free, to iiKpiiic authentically into the history of 
 its struggles, to lake oOicMal and avowed pains to ascer- 
 tain the nioiiK'ut when its success may be recognized, 
 consistently, ever, with the great code that keeps the 
 peace of the world, abstaining from every thing which 
 shall give any nation a right under the law of nations 
 to litter on(> word of complaint, still less to retaliate by 
 war — the sympathy, but also the neutrality, of Wash- 
 ington — how ujurli to compose with honor a concur- 
 rence of dilliculties with the first power in the world, 
 
39 
 
 which any thing less than the highest degree of discre- 
 tion, firmnes»s, abihty, and means of commanding respect 
 and confidence at home and abroad would inevitably 
 have conducted to the last calamity — a disputed bound- 
 ary line of many hundred miles, from the St. Croix to 
 the Rocky Mountains, which divided an exasperated and 
 impracticable border population, enlisted the pride and 
 affected the interests and controlled the politics of par- 
 ticular States, as well as pressed on the peace and honor 
 of the nation, which the most popular administrations of 
 the era of the quietest and best public feelings, the times 
 of Monroe and of Jackson, could not adjust ; which had 
 grown so complicated with other topics of excitement 
 that one false step, right or left, w^ould have been a step 
 down a precipice — this line settled forever — the claim 
 of England to search our ships for the suppression of 
 the slave-trade silenced forever, and a new engagement 
 entered into by treaty, binding the national faith to 
 contribute a speciucr navar'iws^ for putting an end to 
 the great crime of man — the long practice of England 
 to enter an American ship and impress from its crew, 
 terminated forever; the deck henceforth guarded sa- 
 credly and completely by the flag — how much by pro- 
 found discernment, by eloquent speech, by devoted life 
 to strengthen the ties of union, and breathe the fine and 
 strong spirit of nationality through all our numbers — 
 how much, most of all, last of all, after the war with 
 Mexico, needless if his counsels had governed, had ended 
 in so vast an acquisition of territory, in presenting to 
 the two great antagonist sections of our country so vast 
 an area to enter on, so imperial a prize to contend for, 
 and the accursed fraternal strife had begun — how much 
 then, when rising to the measure of a true, and difficult, 
 and rare greatness, remembering that he had a country 
 
40 
 
 ■to save as well as a local constituency to gratify, laying 
 all the wealth, all the hopes, of an illustrious life on the 
 altar of a hazardous patriotism, he sought and won the 
 more exceeding glory which now attends — which in 
 tlie next age shall more conspicuously attend — his 
 name who composes an agitated and saves a sinking 
 land — recall this series of conduct and inlluences, study 
 them carefully in their facts and results — the readiuir 
 of years — and 30U attain to a true appreciation of this 
 aspect of his greatness — his public character and life. 
 
 For such a review the eulogy of an hour has no 
 room. Such a task demands research; details; proofs; 
 illustrations; a long labor — a volume of history com- 
 posed according to her severest laws — setting down 
 nothing, depreciating nothing, in malignity to the dead ; 
 suppressing nothing and falsifying nothing in adulation 
 of the dead ; professing fidelity incorrupt — unswerved 
 by hatred or by love, yet able to measure, able to glow 
 in the contemplation ot^'^Vrile gredfftess and a vast and 
 varied and useful public life ; such a history as the 
 genius and judgment and delicate private and public 
 morality of Everett — assisted by his perfect knowledge 
 of the facts — not disqualified by his long friendship 
 unchilled to the last hour — such a history as he 
 might construct. 
 
 Two or three suggestions, occurring on the most 
 general observation of this as2)ect of his eminence, you 
 Avill tolerate as 1 leave the topic. 
 
 lieiiiail< how very large a proi)ortion of all this class 
 of his acts, are wholly beyond, and outside, of the pro- 
 fession of the luw ; demanding studies, experience, a 
 turn of mind, a cast of (jualities and character, such as 
 that profession neither gives, nor exacts. Some single 
 speeches in Congress of consummate ability, have been 
 
41 
 
 made by great lawyers, drawing for the purpose, only 
 on the learning, accomplishments, logic, and eloquence 
 of the forum. Such was Chief Justice, then Mr. Mar- 
 shall's argument in the case of Jonathan Robbins — 
 turning on the interpretation of a treaty, and the con- 
 stitutional power of the executive ; a demonstration 
 if there is any in Euclid — anticipating the masterly 
 judgments in the cause of Dartmouth College, or of 
 Gibbons and Ogden, or of Maculloch and the State of 
 Maryland ; but such an one as a lawyer like him — if 
 another there was — could have made iu his profes- 
 sional capacity at the bar of tlie House, although he 
 had never reflected on practical politics an hour in his 
 life. Such somewhat was William Pinkney's speech in 
 the House of Representatives on the treaty-making 
 power, in 1815, and his two more splendid displays, in 
 the Senate, on the Missouri question, in 1820, the last 
 of which I heard Mr. Clay pronounce the greatest he 
 ever heard. They were pieces of legal reasoning, on 
 questions of constitutional law ; decorated of course by 
 a rhetoric which Hortensius might have envied, and 
 Cicero would not have despised ; but they were profes- 
 sional at last. To some extent this is true of some of 
 Mr. Webster's ablest speeches in Congress ; or, more 
 accurately, of some of the more important portions of 
 some of his ablest. I should say so of a part of that , 
 on the Panama Mission ; of the reply to Mr. Hayne 
 even ; and of almost the whole of that reply to Mr. 
 Calhoun on the thesis, " the Constitution not a com- 
 pact between sovereign States;" the whole series of dis- 
 cussion of the constitutional power of the Executive, 
 and the constitutional power of the Senate, growing out 
 of the removal of the deposits and the supposed ten- 
 dencies of our system towards a centralization of gov- 
 
•12 
 
 eminent in a Pri'-ick'nt, and a majority of the people — 
 marked, all of them, by amazing ability. To these the 
 lawyer who could demonstrate that the Charter of this 
 College is a contract witliin the Constitution, or that 
 the Steamboat Mcmopoly usurped upon the executed 
 power of Congress to regulate commerce, was already 
 equal — but to have been the leader, or of the leaders 
 of his political connection for thirty years ; to have been 
 able to instruct and guide on every question of policy 
 as well as law, which interested the nation in all that 
 time; every question of finance; of currency; of the 
 lands; of the development and care of our resources and 
 labour; to have been of strength to help to lead his 
 country jjy the hand, up to a position of influence and 
 attraction on the highest places of earth, yet to keep 
 her peace, and to keep her honor ; to have been able 
 to emulate the prescriptive and awful renown of the 
 founders of States by doing something which will be 
 admitted, when some generations have passed, even 
 more than now, to have contributed to preserve the 
 State — for all this another man was needed — and he 
 stands forth another and the same. 
 
 I am hereafter to speak separately of the political 
 morality which guided him ever, but T would say a 
 word now on two portions of his public life, one of 
 ' which has been the sul)ject of accusatory, the other of 
 disparaging criticism, unsound — uidvind — in both in- 
 stances. 
 
 The first comprises his course in ri'gard to a protec- 
 tive policy, lie opposed a tariff of protection it is said, 
 In ISIG, and 1820, and |S2I ; and he opposed, in 1S28, 
 a sudden and fatal repeal of such a tarifi"; and tluMc- 
 upon 1 have seen it written that '• this proved him a 
 man with no great comprehensive ideay of political 
 
43 
 
 economy ; who took the fleetmg interests, and transient 
 ojDinions of the hour for his norms of conduct;" "who 
 had no sober and serious convic lions of his own." I 
 have seen it more decorously Avritten, " that his opinions 
 on this subject were not determined by general princi- 
 ples, but by a consideration of immediate sectional in- 
 terests." 
 
 I will not answer this by what Scaliger says of Lipsius, 
 the arrogant pedant who dogmatized on the deeper po- 
 litics as he did on the text of Tacitus and Seneca. Ncque 
 est poliiicus ; nee potest qiiiequam in politid ; niJill possimt pe- 
 dantes in ipsis rebus : nee ego, nee alius doctus possumus scri- 
 lere in poUticis. I say only that the case totally fails to 
 give color to the charge. The reasonings of Mr. Web- 
 ster in 181G, 1820, and 1824, express that on mature 
 reflection, and due and appropriate study he had em- 
 braced the opinion that it was needless and unwise to 
 force American manufactures, by regulation, prematurely 
 to life. Bred in a commercial community ; taught from 
 his earliest hours of thought to rearard the care of com- 
 merce, as, in point of fact, a leading object and cause of 
 the Union : to observe around him no other forms of 
 material industry than those of commerce ; navigation ; 
 fisheries ; agriculture, and a few plain and robust me- 
 chanical arts, he would come to the study of the politi- 
 cal economy of the subject with a certain preoccupation 
 of mind perhaps ; so coming he did study it at its well 
 heads, and he adopted his conclusions sincerely, and an- 
 nounced them strongly. 
 
 His opinions were overruled by Congress; and a 
 national policy was adopted, holding out all conceivable 
 promise of permanence, under which vast and sensitive 
 investments of capital were made ; the expectations, the 
 employments, the habits, of whole ranges of States were 
 
44 
 
 recast ; an industry, new to us, springing, immature, had 
 been advanced just so far, that if deserted, at that 
 moment, there must follow a squandering of skill ; 
 a squandering of property ; an aggregate of destruction, 
 senseless, needless, and unconscientious — such as marks 
 the worst form of n>voliition. On these facts, at a later 
 day, he thought th;it that industry, tlic child of Clovern- 
 ment, should not thus capriciously be deserted. "The 
 dut}' of the government," he said, "at the present mo- 
 ment would sceui to he to preserve, not to destroy ; to 
 maintain the position which it has assumed ; and for one 
 I shall feel it an indispensable o])ligation to hold it 
 steady, as far as in my power, to that degree of protec- 
 tion which it has undertaken to bestow." 
 
 And does this prove that these original opinions were 
 hasty; shallow; insincere; unstudied? Consistently 
 with every one of them ; consistently with the true 
 spirit, and all the aims, of the science of political econ- 
 omy itself; consistently with every duty of sober, high, 
 earnest, and moral statesmanshi[), might not he who 
 resisted the making of a tariff in ]81C, deprecate its 
 abandonment in 1828? Does not Adam Smith himself 
 admit tliat it i^ '' nuddr Jit for (Jcllhcndion how far or in 
 what manner, it may be proper to restore that free im- 
 jjortation after it has been for some time interrupted?" 
 implying that a general principle of national wealth 
 may be displaced or modified by special circumstances 
 — but would these censors therefore cry out that he 
 had no "great and comprehensive ideas of political econ- 
 omy," and was willing to ])e '"determined not by gene- 
 ral princi[iles, but by immediate interests?" Because a 
 fatlnT advices his son ai^-ainst an earlv and injudicious 
 marriage; does it logieally f(»ll()\v, or is it ethically right, 
 that after his advice has been disregarded, he is to 
 
45 
 
 recommend desertion of the yomig ^Yife, and the young 
 child ? I do not appreciate the beauty and " compre- 
 hensiveness" of those scientific ideas which forget that 
 the actual and vast " interests" of the community are 
 exactl}^ what the legislator has to protect ; that the con- 
 crete of things must limit the foolish wantonness of a 
 imori theor}^ ; that that department of politics, wdiich 
 has for its object the promotion and distribution of the 
 wealth of nations, may very consistently, and very sci- 
 entifically preserve what it would not have created. He 
 who accuses Mr. Webster m this behalf of " having no 
 sober and serious convictions of his own," must afford 
 some other proof than his opposition to the introduc- 
 tion of a policy ; and then his willingness to preserve 
 it after it had been introduced, and five hundred millions 
 of property, or, how^ever, a countless sum had been in- 
 vested vmder it, or become dependent on its continu- 
 ance. 
 
 I should not think that I consulted his true fame if I 
 "did not add that as he came to observe the practical 
 workings of the protective policy more closely than at 
 first he had done ; as he came to observe the working and 
 influences of a various manufacturing and mechanical 
 labor ; to see how it employs and develops every faculty ; 
 finds occupation for every hour; creates or diffuses 
 and disciplines ingenuity, gathering up every fragment 
 of mind a7id time so that nothing be lost; how a steady 
 and ample home market assists agriculture ; how all the 
 great employments of man are connected by a kindred 
 tie, so that the tilling of the land, navigation, foreign, 
 coastwise and interior commerce, all grow with the 
 growth, and strengthen with the strength of the indus- 
 try of the arts — he came to appreciate, more ade- 
 quately than at first, how this form of labor contributes 
 
46 
 
 to wc'iiltli ; powor ; enjoyment; a great civilization ; he 
 came more justly to grasp the conception of how con- 
 summate a rlestruction it would cause — liow senseless, 
 liow unphilosophical, how iuimoral — to arrest it sud- 
 denly and cai)riciously — after it had been lured into 
 life; how wiser — how far truer to the principles of the 
 science which seeks to augment the wealth of the State, 
 to refuse to destroy so immense an accumulation of that 
 wealth. In this sense, and in this wav, 1 believe his 
 opinions were matured and modified ; but it does not 
 quite follow that they were not, in every period, con- 
 scientiously formed and held, or that they were not in 
 the actual circumstances of each period philosophically 
 just, and practically wise. 
 
 The other act of his public life to which I allude is 
 his negotiation of the Treaty of Washington, in IS 12, 
 with Great Britain. This act, the country, the world, 
 has judged, and has applauded. Of lii.s administrative 
 ability ; his discretion ; temper; civil courage ; his power 
 of exar-ting respect and confidence from those with 
 whom he comnnmicated ; and of inlluencing their rea- 
 son ; his knowledge of the true interests and true gran- 
 deur of the two great parties to the negotiation ; of the 
 States of the Union more immediately concerned, and 
 of the world whose chief concern is ])eace ; aiid of the 
 feelings, and disparaging criticisms of the hour, in the 
 intrepidity with which he encountered the di.sappointed 
 consciousness that be had done a good and large deed, 
 and earned a permanent and honest renown — of these 
 it is the truest and nu)st unfortunate single exemplifica- 
 tion which remains of him. Concerning: its dillicultv, 
 impoitaiicr, and merits oi' all sorts, there were at the 
 time, few dissenting opinions among those most con- 
 versant with the sul)ject, although there were some; to- 
 
47 
 
 day there are fewer still. They are so few — a single 
 sneer by the side of his grave, expressing that " a man 
 who makes such a bargain is not entitled to any great 
 glory among diplomatists," is all that I can call to mind 
 — that I will not arrest the course of your feelings here 
 and now by attempting to refute that "sneer" out of 
 the history of the hour and scene. " Standing here," 
 he said in April, 1846, in the Senate of the United 
 States to which he had returned — " standing here to- 
 day, in this Senate, and speaking in behalf of the ad- 
 ministration of which I formed a part, and in behalf of 
 the two houses of Congress who sustained that adminis- 
 tration, cordially and effectively, in every thing relating 
 to this treaty, I am willing to appeal to the public men 
 of the age, whether in 1842, and in the city of Washing- 
 ton, something was not done for the suppression of 
 crime ; for the true exposition of the principles of public 
 law ; for the freedom and security of commerce on the 
 ocean, and for the peace of the world ! " In that forum 
 the appeal has been heard, and the praise of a diplo- 
 matic achievement of true and permanent glory, has 
 been irreversibly awarded to him. Beyond that forum 
 of the mere "public men of the age," by the larger juris- 
 diction, the general public, the same praise has been 
 awarded. S'unt hie eiiam sua prcemia laiidi. That which 
 I had the honor to say in the Senate, in the session of 
 1843, in a discussion concerning this treaty, is true, and 
 applicable, now as then. " Why should I, or why should 
 any one, assume the defence of a treaty here in this 
 body, which but just now, on the amplest consideration, 
 in the confidence and calmness of executive session, was 
 approved by a vote so decisive ? Sir, the country by a 
 vote far more decisive, in a proportion very far beyond 
 thirty-nine to nine, has approved your approval. Some 
 
48 
 
 there arc, some few — T speak not now of any moinbcr 
 of this Senate — rcstles.-?, .sellit^li, reekless, •• the cankers 
 of a eahn world and a long peace," pining with thirst of 
 notoriety, .slaves to their hatred of England, to whom 
 the treaty is distasteful; to whom any treaty, and all 
 things but the glare and clamor, the vain pomp and 
 hollow circumstance ol" war — all hut these would be 
 distasteful and (heary. But the country is with you in 
 this act of wisdom and glory; its intelligence; its 
 morality; itshdjor; its good men ; the thoughtful ; the 
 l)hilanthropic ; the discreet; the masses, are with you." 
 "It confirms the purpose of the wise and good of both 
 nations to be for ever at peace with one another, and to 
 put away forever all war from the kindred races : war 
 the most ridiculous of blunders ; the most tremendous 
 of crimes ; the most comprehensive of evils." 
 
 And now to him who in the solitude of his library 
 depreciates this act, lirst, because there was no danger of 
 a war with England, I answer that according to the 
 overwhelming weight of that kind of evidence by 
 which that kind of question must be tried, that is by 
 the judgment of the great body of well-informed public 
 men at that moment in Congress; in the Government ; 
 in diplomatic situation — our relations to that power had 
 become so delicate, and so urgent, that unless soon ad- 
 justed by negotiation there was real danger of war. 
 Against such evidence what is the value of the specula- 
 tion of a private person, ten years afterwards, in the 
 shade of his general studies, whatever his sagacity ? The 
 temper of the border population; the tendencies to dis- 
 order ill Canada, stimulated by sympathizers on our 
 side of the line; the entrance on our territorv of a IJrit- 
 ish armed force in IS-IT; cuttiuLi: the Caroline out of 
 licr harbor, and scndiu'-- her down the falls; the arrest 
 
49 
 
 of McLeod in 1841, a British subject, composing part of 
 that force, by the government of New York, and the 
 threat to hang him, which a person high in office in 
 England, declared, in a letter which was shown to me, 
 would raise a cry for war from " whig, radical, and tory" 
 which no ministry could resist ; growing irritation 
 caused by the search of our vessels under color of sup- 
 pressing the slave-trade ; the long controversy, almost 
 as old as the government, about the boundary line — so 
 conducted as to have at last convinced each disputant 
 that the other was fraudulent and insincere ; as to have 
 enlisted the pride of States ; as to have exasperated and 
 agitated a large line of border ; as to have entered 
 finally into the tactics of political parties, and the 
 schemes of ambitious men, out-bidding, out-racing one 
 another in a competition of clamor and vehemence ; a 
 controversy on which England, a European monarchy, 
 a first class power, near to the great sources of the 
 opinion of the world, by her press, her diplomacy, and 
 her universal intercourse had taken great pains to per- 
 suade Europe that our claim was groundless and uncon- 
 scientious — all these things announced to near observers 
 in public life a crisis at hand which demanded some- 
 thing more than - any sensible and honest man" to en- 
 counter ; assuring some glory to him who should tri- 
 umph over it. One such observer said: "Men stood 
 facing each other with gims on their shoulders, upon op- 
 posite sides of fordable rivers, thirty yards wide. The 
 discharge of a single musket would have brought on a 
 war whose fires would have encircled the globe." 
 
 Is this act disparaged next because what each party 
 had for sixty years claimed as the true line of the old 
 treaty was waived, a line of agreement substituted, and 
 equivalents given and taken, for gain or loss ? But here- 
 
 5 
 
50 
 
 in you will .see only, ^vllat the nation lias seen, the bold- 
 ness as ^vell as sagacity of Mr. Webster. When the 
 awaiil of the king of the Netherlands, propo.sing a line 
 of agreement, was oflered to Pre.'sident Jackson, that 
 strong will darc(l not accept it in face of the party poli- 
 tics of Maine — although he advised to ofier her the 
 value of a million of dollars to procure her a.s.sent to an 
 adjustment which his own mind approved. What he 
 dared not do, inferred some peril 1 suppose. Yet the 
 experience of twentj' years; of sixty years; should have 
 taught all men ; had taught many who shrank from act- 
 ing on it, that the Gordian knot must be cut, not un- 
 loosed — that all further attempt to find the true line 
 must be abandoned as an idle and a perilous diplomacy ; 
 and that a b(jundary must be made by a bargain worthy 
 of nations, or must be traced b}' the point of the bayonet. 
 The merit of Mr. Webster is lirst that he dared to open 
 the negotiation on this basis. I sav the boldness. For 
 appreciate the domestic dilliculties which attended it. 
 In its nature it proposed to give up something which 
 we had thought our own for half a century ; to cede of 
 the territory of more than one State ; it demanded there- 
 fore the assent of those States by formal act, committing 
 the State jjarties in power une(juivocally ; it was to be 
 undertaken not in the administration of Monroe — elect- 
 ed by the whole people — not in the administration of 
 Jackson whose vast popularity could carry any thing, 
 and withstand any tiling; but just when the dcatli of 
 President llanison had scattered his party; had alien- 
 ated hearts; had severed ties and dissolved connections 
 indispensable to the strength of administration ; creat- 
 ing a loud call on Mr. Webster to leave the Cabinet — 
 creating almost the appearance of an unwillingness that 
 he should contribute to its glory even by largest service 
 to the State. 
 
51 
 
 Yet consider finally how he surmounted every diffi- 
 culty. I will not say with Lord Palmerston, in parlia- 
 ment, that there was " nobody in England who did not 
 admit it a very bad treaty for England." But I may re- 
 peat what I said on it in the Senate in 1843. "And 
 now what does the world see ? An adjustment con- 
 cluded by a special minister at Washington, by which 
 four fifths of the value of the whole subject in contro- 
 versy, is left to you as your own ; and by which, for that 
 one fifth which England desires to possess, she pays you 
 over and over, in national equivalents, imperial equiva- 
 lents, such as a nation may give, such as a nation may 
 accept, satisfactory to your interests, soothing to your 
 honor — the navisration of the St. John — a concession 
 the value of which nobody disputes, a concession not to 
 Maine alone, but to the Avhole country, to commerce, to 
 navigation, as far as winds blow or waters roll — an 
 equivalent of inappreciable' value, opening an ample path 
 to the sea, an equivalent in part for what she receives 
 of the territory in dispute — a hundred thousand acres 
 in New Hampshire ; fifty thousand acres in Vermont 
 and New York ; the point of land commanding the great 
 militar}^ way to and from Canada by Lake Champlain ; 
 the fair and fertile island of St. George ; the surrender 
 of a pertinacious pretension to four millions of acres 
 westward of Lake Superior. Sir, I will not say that this 
 adjustment admits, or was designed to admit that our 
 title to the whole territory in controversy was perfect 
 and indisputable. I will not do so much injustice to the 
 accomplished and excellent person who represented the 
 moderation and the good sense of the English govern- 
 ment and people in this negotiation. I cannot adopt 
 even for the defence of a treaty which I so much ap- 
 prove, the language of a writer in the London Morn- 
 
r 
 
 2 
 
 ing Chronicle of Scpteniljcr last, avIio Im.s been said to 
 be Lord Palincrston, ^vllic•ll over and over asserts — 
 gubstantiall^' as his Lordship certainly did in parliament, 
 that the adjustment 'virtually acknowledges the Ameri- 
 can claim to the Avhole of the disputed territory,' and 
 that ^ it gives England no share at all ; absolutely none ; 
 i\)v the capitulation virtually and practically yields up 
 the whole territory to the United States, and then 
 brings back a small part of it in exchange for the right 
 of navigating the St. John.' 1 will not say this. But I 
 say first, that by concession of everybody it is a better 
 treaty than the administration of President Jackson 
 would have most eagerly concluded, if by the offer of a 
 million and a quarter acres (jf land they could have pro- 
 cured the assent of Maine to it. That treaty she re- 
 jected ; this she accepts ; and 1 disparage nobody when 
 I maintain that on all parts, and all aspects, of this ques- 
 tion, national or state, military or industrial, her opinion 
 is worth that of the whole country beside. I i<!\y next 
 that the treaty admits the substantial justice of your 
 general claim. It admits that in its utmost extent it 
 was plausible, formidable, and made in pure good faith. 
 It admits before the nations that we have not been rapa- 
 cious; have not made false clamor; that we have assert- 
 ed our own, and oldained our own. Adjudging to you 
 the possession of four fifths indisputal)ly, .she gives you 
 for the one fifth which you concede, eiiuivalents, given 
 as erjm'rahi/.f, co nomine, on purpose to soothe and save 
 the point of honor; whose intrinsical and comparative 
 vahu' is such that you may accept them as eciuivalents 
 without reproach to your judgment, or your liniine.^s, or 
 your good faith ; w ho.se intrinsical and comparative 
 value, tried \)\ the maxims, weighed in the scales of im- 
 perial traffic, make them a compensation over and over 
 again lor all wc concede." 
 
53 
 
 But I linger too long upon his public life, and upon 
 this one of its great acts. With Avhat profound convic- 
 tion of all the difficulties which beset it; with what 
 anxieties for the issue, hope and fear alternately prepon- 
 derating, he entered on that extreme trial of capacity, 
 and good fortune, and carried it through, I shall not 
 soon forget. As if it were last night, I recall the time 
 when, after the Senate had ratified it in an evening 
 executive session, by a vote of thirty-nine to nine, I 
 personally carried to him the result, at his own house, 
 and in presence of his wife. Then, indeed, the measure 
 of his glory and happiness seemed full. In the exube- 
 rant language of Burke, " I stood near him, and his face, 
 to use the expression of the Scripture of the first mar- 
 t^^r, was as if it had been the face of an angel. ' Hope 
 elevated, and joy brightened his crest.' I do not know 
 how others feel, but if I had stood in that situation, I 
 would not have exchanged it for all that kings or people 
 could bestow." 
 
 Such eminence and such hold on the public mind as 
 he attained demands extraordinary general intellectual 
 power, adequate mental culture, an impressive, attract- 
 ive, energetic and great character, and extraordinary 
 specific power also of influencing the convictions and 
 actions of others by speech. These all he had. 
 
 That in the quality of pure and sheer power of intel- 
 lect he was of the first class of men, is, I think, the uni- 
 versal judgment of all who have personally witnessed 
 many of his higher displays, and of all who without that 
 opportunity have studied his life in its actions and in- 
 fluences, and studied his mind in its recorded thoughts. 
 Sometimes it has seemed to me that to enable one to 
 appreciate with accuracy, as a psychological speculation, 
 the intrinsic and absolute volume and texture of that 
 
51 
 
 brain; the real rate and measure of those aljilities; it 
 •was better not to see or hear him, unless vou could .see 
 or liear liim iVcMjueutly, and in various modes of exld- 
 bition ; lor undoulUedly there was something in his 
 countenance and bearing so expressive of command ; 
 something even in his conversational language when 
 sa}'ing parm summisse d moiUca Icnipcratc, so exquisitely 
 plausible, embodying the likeness at least of a rich truth, 
 the forms at least of a large generalization, in an epithet; 
 an antithesis; a pointed phrase; abroad and peremp- 
 tory thesis — and something in his grander forth-put- 
 ting when rjused by a great subject or occasion exciting 
 his reason and touching his moral sentiments and his 
 heart, so dilFicult to be resisted, approaching so near, 
 going so far beyond, the higher style of man, that 
 although it left you a very good witness of his power of 
 intluencing others, you were not in the best condition, 
 innnediately, to pronounce on the quality, or tlie source 
 oftlie influence. You saw the Hash and heard the peal; 
 and felt the admiration and fear; but from what retriou 
 it was launched, and bv wliat divinitv, and from what 
 Olympian seat, you could not certainly yet tell. To do 
 that, you must, if you saw him at all, see him many 
 times; compare hiiu with himsell', and with others; 
 follow his dazzling career f. om his i'ather's house; 
 observe from what conq)etitors he won tho-^^e laurels; 
 study his discour.ses, study them by the side of those of 
 other great men of this country and tiinc. and of otiicr 
 countries and times, conspicuous in the same iiclds of 
 mental achievement ; look throui-h the crvstal water of 
 the st}le down to the golden sands of the thought; 
 analyze and eontiast intellectual })ower .»<omewhat ; con- 
 sider what kind, and what (piantity of it has been held 
 by students of mind nccdfid in order to great eminence 
 
55 
 
 in the higher mathematicSj or metaphysics, or reason of 
 the law : what capacity to analyze, through and through, 
 to the primordial elements of the truths of that science ; 
 yet what wisdom and sobriety, in order to control' the 
 wantonness and shun the absurdities of a mere scholastic 
 logic, by systematizing ideas, and combining them, and 
 repressing one by another, thus producing, not a collec- 
 tion of intense and conflicting paradoxes, but a code — 
 scientifically coherent, and practicallj^ useful, — consider 
 what description and what quantity of mind have been 
 held needful by students of mind in order to conspicu- 
 ous eminence, long maintained, in statesmanship ; that 
 great practical science, that great philosopliical art — 
 whose ends are the existence, happiness and honor of a 
 nation : whose truths are to be drawn from the widest 
 survey of man ; of social man : of the particular race, 
 and particular community for which a government is to 
 be made, or kept, or a policy to be provided ; " philoso- 
 phy in action," demanding at once, or affording place 
 for, the highest speculative genius, and the most skilful 
 conduct of men, and of affairs; and, finally, consider 
 what degree and kind of mental power has been found 
 to be required in order to influence the reason of an 
 audience and a nation by speech — not magnetizing the 
 mere nervous or emotional nature by an effort of that 
 nature — but operating on reason by reason — a great 
 reputation in forensic and deliberative eloquence, main- 
 tained and advancing for a lifetime — it is thus that we 
 come to be sure that his intellectual power was as real 
 and as uniform, as its very happiest particular display 
 had been imposing and remarkable. 
 
 It was not quite so easy to analyze that power, to 
 compare or contrast it with that of other mental celebri- 
 ties, and show how it differed or resembled, as it was to 
 discern its existence. 
 
OG 
 
 AVliotlier, for cxainplc, lie M^ould liave excellecl as 
 niiicli in ntluT lields of exertion — in speculative philo- 
 sojiliy, for example, in any oi' its departments — is a 
 l)ro))lem impussible to determine and needless to move. 
 To me it seems quite clear that the whole wealth of his 
 powers, his whole emotional nature, his eloquent feeling, 
 his matchless capacity to aflect others' conduct by affect- 
 ing their practical judgments, could not have been 
 known, could not have Ijeen poured forth in a stream so 
 rich and stronix and full, could not have so reacted on, 
 and ai(l('(l and winged the mighty intelligence, in any 
 other walk of mind, or life, than that he chose — that in 
 any other there must have been some disjoining of 
 qualities which God had united — some divorce of pure 
 intellect from the helps or hindrances or companionship 
 of common sense and beautiful genius ; and that in any 
 field of speculative ideas but half of him, or part of him, 
 could have found its sphere. AVIiat that part might 
 have been or done, it is vain to incjuire. 
 
 I have been told that the assertion has been hazarded 
 that he " was great in understanding; deficient in the 
 large reason ; " and to prove this distinction he is com- 
 pare(l disadvantageously, with "Socrates; Aristotle; 
 Plato ; Leil)nitz ; Newton ; and Descartes." If this 
 means tiiat he did not devote his mind, such as it was, 
 to their speculations, it is true; but that would not 
 prove tiial he had not as much "higher reason." Where 
 was liacon's hljlicr reason when he was composing his 
 readiuLT on the Statute of Uses? Had he lost it? or 
 was he only not employing it ? or was he employing it 
 on an inv('sti<j;ation of law ? If it means that he l)ad not 
 as inucii absolute intellectual power as they, or could 
 not, in their departments, have done what they did, it 
 may be dismis-cd ;is a dogma incapable of proof, and 
 
57 
 
 incapable o'' refutation; ineffectual as a disparagement; 
 nnpliilosophical as a comparison. 
 
 It is too common with those who come from the reve- 
 ries of a cloistered speculation, to judge a practical life ; 
 to say of him, and such as he, that they " do not enlarge 
 universal law, and first principles; and philosophical 
 ideas ; " that " they add no new maxim formed by induc- 
 tion out of human history and old thought." In this 
 there is some truth; and yet it totally fails to prove 
 that they do not possess all the intellectual power, and 
 all the specific form of intellectual power required for 
 such a description of achievement ; and it totally fails, 
 too, to prove that they do not use it quite as truly to 
 " the glory of God, and the bettering of man's estate." 
 Whether they ossess such power or not, the evidence 
 does not disprove ; and it is a pedantic dogmatism, if it 
 is not a malignant dogmatism, which, from such evidence, 
 pronounces that they do not ; but it is doubtless so, that 
 by an original bias ; by accidental circumstances or deli- 
 berate choice, he determined early to devote himself to 
 a practical and great duty, and that was to uphold a 
 recent, delicate, and complex political system, which his 
 studies, his sagacity, taught him, as Solon learned, was 
 the best the people could bear ; to uphold it ; to adapt 
 its essential principles and its actual organism to the 
 great changes of his time ; the enlarging territory ; en- 
 larging numbers ; sharper antagonisms ; mightier pas- 
 sions ; a new nationality ; and under it, and by means 
 of it, and by a steady government, a wise policy of busi- 
 ness, a temperate conduct of foreign relations, to enable 
 a people to develop their resources, and fulfil their 
 mission. This he selected as his work on earth; this 
 his task ; this, if well done, his consolation, his joy, his 
 
o8 
 
 triuinpli ! Tn tills, call it, in comparison with the medi- 
 tations of philosophy, humhle or high, he hrought all 
 the vast gifts of intellect, whatever they were, where- 
 with God had enriched him. And now, do they infer 
 that, hecause he selected such a work to do he could not 
 have possessed the higher form of intellectual power; 
 or do they sav that, hecause having selected it, he per- 
 formed it with a masterly and uniform sagacity, and 
 prudence, and good sense ; using ever the appropriate 
 means to tli o selected end ; that therefore he could not 
 have possessed the higher form of intellectual power ? 
 Because all his life long, he recognized that his voca- 
 tion was that of a statesman and a jurist, not that of a 
 thinker and dreamer in the shade, still less of a general 
 agitator ; that his duties connected themselves mainly 
 with an existing stupendous political order of things, to 
 be kept — to he adapted with all possible civil discre- 
 tion and temper to the growth of the nation — hut by 
 no means to be exchanged for any quantity of amor- 
 phous matter in the form of " universal law " or new 
 maxims and fi^reat ideas born since the last chauLre of 
 the moon — Ijecause he quite habitually spoke the lan- 
 guage of the Constitution and the law, not the phrase- 
 ology of a new philosophy; confining himself very much 
 to inculcating historical, traditional, and indispensable 
 maxims — neutrality ; justice; good faith; observance of 
 fundamental compacts of Union and the like — because 
 it was America — our America — he sought to preserve, 
 and to set forward to her glory — not so much an ab- 
 stract conception of humanity; because he could com- 
 bine many ideas; many elements; many antagonisms; 
 in a harmonious, and noble practical politics, instead of 
 fastening on one onlv, and — that sure siirn of small or 
 
59 
 
 perverted ability — aggravating it to disease and false- 
 hood — is it therefore inferred that he had not the 
 larger form of intellectual power? 
 
 And this power was not oppressed, but aided and 
 accomplished by exercise the most constant, the most 
 severe, the most stimulant, and by a force of will as 
 remarkable as his genius, and by adequate mental and 
 tasteful culture. How much the eminent greatness it 
 reached is due to the various and lofty competition to 
 which he brought, if he could, the most careful prepara- 
 tion — competition with adversaries cum qidhiis ceriare erat 
 gloriosiiiSy qiiam omnino adversarios non habere, cum iwcGseriim 
 non modo, minqiiam sit aut illorwn ah ipso cursus impeditiis, aid 
 ah ipsis suns, sed contra semper alter ah altero adjutus, et com- 
 municando, et moiiendo, etfavendo, you may well appreciate. 
 
 I claim much, too, under the name of mere mental 
 culture. Remark his style. I allow its full weight to 
 the Horatian maxim, scrihendi rede sapcre est et principium 
 et foils, and I admit that he had deep and exquisite 
 judgment, largely of the gift of God. But such a style 
 as his is due also to art, to practice — in the matter of 
 style, incessant, to great examples of fine writing turned 
 by the nightly and the daily hand; to Cicero, through 
 whose pellucid deep seas the pearl shows distinct, and 
 large and near, as if within the arm's reach ; to Virgil, 
 whose magic of words, whose exquisite structure and 
 "rich economy of expression," no other writer ever equal- 
 led ; to our English Bible, and especially to the propheti- 
 cal writings, and of these especially to Ezekiel — of some 
 of whose peculiarities, and among- them that of the repe- 
 tition of single words, or phrases for emphasis and im- 
 pression, a friend has called my attention to some very 
 striking illustrations; to Shakespeare, of the stjde of 
 whose comic dialogue we may, in the language of the 
 
CO 
 
 great critic, assert '- that it is that which in the Eny:Hsh 
 nation is never to heconie obsolete, a certain mode of 
 I)hraseology so consonant and congenial to analogy, to 
 principles of the language, as to remain settled and un- 
 altered — a style above grossness, below modish and pe- 
 dantic forms of speech, -where propriety resides;" to 
 Addison, whom Johnson, Mackintosh, and Macaulay, 
 concur to put at the head of all fine writers, for the 
 amenity, delicacy, and unostentatious elegance of his 
 English; to Popi-, polished, condensed, sententious; to 
 Johnson and lUuke, in whom all the atlluence and all 
 the energy of our tongue in both its great elements of 
 Saxon and Latin might be exemplified ; to the study 
 and comparison, but not the copying of authors such as 
 these ; to habits of writing, and speaking, and convers- 
 ing, on the capital theory of always doing his best — 
 thus somewhat, I think, was acquired that remarkable 
 production, '• the last work of combined study and 
 genius," his rich, clear, correct, harmonious, and weighty 
 style of prose. 
 
 Beyond these studies and exercises of taste, he had 
 read variously and judiciously. If any public man, or 
 any man, had more thoroughly mastered British con- 
 stitutional and f!:eneral historv, or the historv of British 
 legislation, or could deduce the progress, era.**, eau.ses, 
 and hindrances of British liberty in more prompt, exact, 
 and coijious detail, or had in \\\< mcniorv, at anv frivon 
 moment, a more ample ])olitical biography, or political 
 literature, 1 do not know him. His library of English 
 history, and of all history, was always rich, .^eleet, and 
 (•atholii', and I well recollect hearin;:; him. in 1S1!>. ^vllile 
 attending a eouniiencement of this college, at an even- 
 ing jiarty sketch, with great emphasis and interest of 
 manner, the merits of CJeorge Buchanan, the historian of 
 
61 
 
 Scotland — liis latinity and eloqnence almost eqnal to 
 Livy's, his love of liberty and liis genius greater, and his 
 title to credit not much worse. American history and 
 American political literature he had by heart. The long 
 series of influences that trained us for representative 
 and free government ; that other series of influences 
 "which moulded us into a united government — the colo- 
 nial era — the age of controversy before the revolution; 
 every scene and every person in that great tragic 
 action — the asre of controversv followino; the revolu- 
 
 O •/ CD 
 
 tion, and preceding the Constitution, unlike the earlier, 
 in which we divided among ourselves on the greatest 
 questions which can engage the mind of America — the 
 questions of the existence of a national government, of 
 the continued existence of the State governments, on 
 the i^artition of powers, on the umpirage of disputes be- 
 tween them — a controversy on which the destiny of 
 the New World was staked ; every problem, which has 
 successively engaged our politics, and every name which 
 has figured in them, the whole stream of our time was 
 open, clear, and present ever to his eye. 
 
 I think, too, that, though not a frequent and ambi- 
 tious citer of authorities, he had read, in the course of 
 the stud}^ of his profession or politics, and had meditated 
 all the great writers and thinkers by whom the princi- 
 ples of republican government, and all free govern- 
 ments, are most authoritatively expounded. Aristotle, 
 Cicero, Machiavel, one of whose discourses on Livy, 
 maintains in so masterly an argument, how much wiser 
 and more constant are the people than the prince — a 
 doctrine of liberty consolatory and full of joy, Harring- 
 ton, Milton, Sidney, Locke, I know he had read and 
 weighed. 
 
 Other classes of information there were, partly ob- 
 
 6 
 
02 
 
 tainod from books, partly Irom observation — to .some 
 extent referable to his two main employments of poli- 
 tics and law — by whidi he was distinguished remarkably. 
 Thus, nobody l)iit was struck ^vith his knowled<re of 
 civil and physical geography, and to a less extent of 
 creolofv and races ; of all the great routes and marts of 
 our foreign, coastwise, and interior connnerce ; the sub- 
 jects wliich it exchanges, the whole circle of industry it 
 comprehends and passes around ; the kinds of our me- 
 chanical and manufacturing productions, and their re- 
 lations to all labor, and life ; the history, theories, and 
 practice of agriculture, our own and that of other coun- 
 tries, and its relations to government, liberty, happiness, 
 and the character of nations. This kind of information 
 enriched and assisted all his public efiorts ; but to appre- 
 ciate the variety and accuracy of his knowledge, and 
 even the true couipa.'^s of his mind, you must have had 
 some familiarity with his friendly written correspon- 
 dence, and you must have conversed with him, with 
 some degree of freedom. There, more than in senato- 
 rial or forensic debate, gleamed the true riches of his 
 genius, as well as the goodness of his large heart, and 
 the kindness of his noble nature. There, with no longer 
 a great part to discharge, no longer compelled to weigh 
 and measure propositions, to tread the dizzy heights 
 w hich part the antagonisms of the Constitution, to put 
 aside allusions and illustrations, which crowded on his 
 mind in action, but which the dignity of a public apjjcar- 
 ance had to reject — in the conlidence of hospitality, 
 ■which ever he dispensed as a prince ^vho also was a 
 friend — liis memory, one of his most extraordinary 
 faculties, (piite in proportion to all the rest, swept free 
 over the readings and labors of more than half a century; 
 and then allusion.s, direct and ready quotations, a passing. 
 
G 
 
 o 
 
 mature criticism, sometimes only a recollection of the 
 mere emotions wliich a glorious passage or interesting 
 event had once excited, darkening for a moment the 
 face, and filling the eye — often an instructive exposi- 
 tion of a current maxim of philosophy or politics, the 
 history of an invention, the recital of some incident 
 casting a new light on some transaction or some institu- 
 tion — this flow of unstudied conversation, quite as 
 remarkable as any other exhibition of his mind, better 
 than any other, perhaps, at once opened an unexpected 
 glimpse of his various acquirements, and gave you to 
 experience delightedly that the " mild sentiments have 
 their eloquence as well as the stormy passions." 
 
 There must be added next the element of an impres- 
 sive character, inspiring regard, trust, and admiration, 
 not unmingled with love. It had, I think, intrinsically 
 a charm such as belongs only to a good, noble, and 
 beautiful nature. In its combination Avith so much 
 fame, so much force of will, and so much intellect, it 
 filled and fascinated the imasrination and heart. It was 
 aifectionate in childhood and youth, and it was more 
 than ever so m the few last months of his long life. It 
 is the universal testimony that he gave to his parents, 
 in largest measure, honor, love, obedience ; that he 
 eagerly appropriated the first means wdiich he could 
 command to relieve the father from the debts contracted 
 to educate his brother and himself — that he selected 
 his first place of professional practice that he might 
 soothe the coming on of his old age — that all through 
 life he neglected no occasion, sometimes when leaning 
 on the arm of a friend, alone, with faltering voice, some- 
 times in the presence of great assemblies, where the tide 
 of general emotion made it graceful, to expresss his 
 " affectionate veneration of him who reared and defend- 
 
G4 
 
 ed the luji cabin in ^vllioll liis eliler brotlicrs and sLsters 
 "were born, a<4;iinst savage violence ami destruction ; 
 cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and 
 through the lire and blood of some years of revolution- 
 ary ^var, shrank from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice, to 
 serve his countrv, and to raise his children to a condition 
 better than his own." 
 
 K(iually beautiful was his love of all his kindred, and 
 of all his friends, Wiien I hear him accused of selfish- 
 ness, and a cold, bad nature, I recall him lying sleepless 
 all night, not without tears of boyhood, conferring with 
 Ezekiel how the darling desire of both hearts should be 
 compa.ssed, and he too admitted to the precious privi- 
 leges of education ; courageously pleading the cause of 
 both brothers in the morning; prevailing by the wise 
 and discerning aflection of the mother; suspending his 
 studies of the law, and registering deeds and teaching 
 school to earn the means, fur l)oth, of availing them- 
 selves of the opportunit} which the parental self-sacrifice 
 had placed within their reach — loving him through 
 life, mourning him when dead, -with a love and a sorrow 
 very wonderful — passing the, sorrow of woman ; I re- 
 call the husband, the father of the living and of the 
 early departed, the friend, the counsellor of many yeai*s, 
 and my heart grows too i"ull and li(iuid for the refuta- 
 tiiiii of words. 
 
 J lis allectionate nature, craving ever friendship, as 
 ■well as the presence of kindred blood, diffused itself 
 through all his private life, gave sincerity to all his hos- 
 pitalities, kindne.^^s to his v\i\ warmth to the pressure of 
 his jiand ; made his greatness and genius unbend them- 
 selves to the playfulness of childhood, liowt'd out in 
 graceful memories indulged of the past or the dead, of 
 incidents when life was young and promised to be happy 
 
65 
 
 — gave generous sketches of his rivals — the high con- 
 tention now hidden by the handful of earth — recalled 
 hours passed fifty 3^ears ago with great authors, recalled 
 them for the vernal emotions which then they made to 
 live and revel in the sonl. And from these conversa- 
 tions of friendship, no man — no man, old or young — 
 went away to remember one word of profaneness, one 
 allusion of indelicacy, one impure thought, one unbe- 
 lieving suggestion, one doubt cast on the reality of 
 virtue, of patriotism, of enthusiasm, of the progress of 
 man — one doubt cast on righteousness, or temperance, 
 or judgment to come. 
 
 Every one of his tastes and recreations announced 
 the same type of character. His love of agriculture, of 
 sports in the open air, of the outward world in starlight 
 and storms, and sea and boundless wilderness — partly a 
 result of the influences of the first fourteen years of his 
 life, perpetuated like its other affections and its other 
 lessons of a mother's love, the psalms, the Bible, the 
 stories of the wars — partly the return of an unsophisti- 
 cated and healthful nature, tiring, for a space, of the idle 
 business of political life, its distinctions, its artificialities, 
 to employments, to sensations which interest without 
 agitating the universal race alike, as God has framed it ; 
 in which one feels himself only a man, fashioned from 
 the earth, set to till it, appointed to return to it, yet 
 made in the image of his Maker, and with a spirit that 
 shall not die — all displayed one whom the most various 
 intercourse with the world, the longest career of strife 
 and honors, the consciousness of intellectual sujDremacy, 
 the coming in of a wide fame, constantly enlarging, left 
 as he was at first, natural, simple, manly, genial, kind. 
 
 You will all concur, I think, with a learned friend who 
 thus calls my attention to the resemblance of his char- 
 
 6* 
 
66 
 
 actor, iu .some ui' llicsc p;uticiiha-s, to that of Walter 
 Scott. 
 
 '• Nature endowed Ijoth willi athletic frames, and a 
 noble presence ; both passionately loved rural life, its 
 labors, and sports; possessed a manly simplicity free 
 from all affectation, genial and social tastes, full minds, 
 and lia[>py elocution ; both stamped themselves uith 
 indelible marks npon the age in ^\hich they lived ; both 
 were laborious and always with high and virtuous aims, 
 ardent in patriotism, overflowing with love of ' kindred 
 blood,' and, above all, frank and unostentatious Chris- 
 tians." 
 
 1 have learned by evidence the most direct and satis- 
 factory, that in the last months of his life, the whole 
 aflectionateness of his nature; his consideration of 
 others ; his gentleness ; his desire to make them happy 
 and to see them happy, seemed to come out in more and 
 more beautiful and liabitual expression than ever before. 
 The long day's public tasks were felt to be done ; the 
 cares, the uncertainties, the mental conllicts of high 
 place, were ended ; and he came home to recover him- 
 self for the few years which he might still expect would 
 be his before he should go hence to be here no more. 
 And there, I am assured and fully believe, no unbecom- 
 ing regrets pursued him; no discontent, as for injustice 
 suflered or expectations unfulfilled ; no self-reproach for 
 any thing done or any thing omitted by himself; no 
 irritation, nn ]>oevishness unworthy of his noble nature ; 
 but instead, love and hope for his country, when she 
 became the subject of conversation ; and for all around 
 him, the dearest and the most indifferent, for all breath- 
 ing things about him, the overflow of the kindest heart 
 growing in gentleness and benevolence; paternal, patn- 
 urchcal affections, seeming to become more natural, 
 
G7 
 
 warm, and commnnicative every lioiir. Softer and yet 
 brighter grew the tints on the sky of parting day ; and 
 the last lingering rays, more even than the glories of 
 noon, announced how divine was the source from which 
 they proceeded ; how incapable to be quenched ; how 
 certain to rise on a morning which no night should follow. 
 Such a character was made to be loved. It was loved. 
 Those who knew and saw it in its hour of calm — those 
 who could repose on that soft green, loved him. His 
 plain neighbors loved him ; and one said, when he was 
 laid in his grave, " How lonesome the world seems ! " 
 Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the 
 gospel, the general intelligence of the country, the 
 masses afar off, loved him. True, they had not found in 
 his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of the 
 people ; so much of the music which robs the public 
 reason of itself; so many phrases of humanity and phi- 
 lanthropy ; and some had told them he was lofty and 
 cold — solitary in his greatness ; but every year they 
 came nearer and nearer to him, and as they (fame nearer 
 they loved him better ; they heard how tender the son 
 had been, the husband, the brother, the father, the 
 friend, and neighbor ; that he w^as plain, simple, natural, 
 generous, hospitable — the heart larger than the brain ; 
 that he loved little children and reverenced God, the 
 Scriptures, the Sabbath day, the Constitution, and the 
 law — and their hearts clave unto him. More truly of 
 him than even of the great naval darling of England 
 might it be said, that " his presence would set the church 
 bells ringing, and give school-boys a holiday — would 
 bring children from school and old men from the chim- 
 ney corner, to gaze on him ere he died." The great and 
 •unavailing lamentation first revealed the deep place he 
 had in the hearts of his countrymen. 
 
G8 
 
 Yoii are now to adtl to this his cxtraonlinary power 
 of inlliiencing the convictions' of others by speech, and 
 you have comi)leted the suivey of the means of his 
 ^^reatness. And here a^ain I begin by admiring an 
 aggregate, made up of excellences and triumphs, ordi- 
 narily deemed incompatible. lie spoke^with consum- 
 mate al)ility to the bench, and yet exactly as, according 
 to every sound canon of ta^te and ethics, the bench 
 ouirht to Ijc addressed. He spoke ^vith consmnmate 
 ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every 
 sound canon, that totally difierent tribunal ought to be 
 addressed. In the halls of Congress, before the people 
 assembled for political discussion in masses, before audi- 
 ences smaller and more select, assemljled for some so- 
 lemn connnemoration of the past, or of the dead ; in 
 each of these, again, his speech, of the first form of 
 ability, was exactly adapted also to the critical proprie- 
 ties of the i)lace ; each achieved, -svhen delivered, the 
 most instant and specific success of eloquence, some of 
 them in a splendid and remarkable degree, and yet 
 stranger still, Avhen reduced to writing as they fell from 
 his lips, they compose a body of reading, in many vol- 
 nmes, solid, clear, rich, and full of harmony, a classical 
 and permanent political literature. 
 
 And yet all these modes of his eloquence, exactly 
 adapted eacli to its stage and its end, were stamped with 
 his image and superscription ; identified by characteris- 
 tics incapable to be counterfeited, and impos.sible to be 
 mistaken. The same high power of reason, intent in 
 every one to explore and display some truth ; some 
 truth of judicial, or historical, or biographical fact; some 
 truth of law, deduced by construction, perhajis, or by 
 illation; some truth of policy, for want whereof a 
 nation, generations, may be the worse ; reason seeking 
 
69 
 
 and unfolding truth ; the same tone in all of deep ear- 
 nestness, expressive of strong desire that that which he 
 felt to be important should be accepted as true, and 
 spring up to action ; the same transparent, plain, for- 
 cible and direct speech, conveying his exact thought to 
 the mind, not something less or more ; the same sov- 
 ereignty of form, of brow, and eye, and tone, and man- 
 ner — everywhere the intellectual king of men, stand- 
 ing before you — that same marvellousness of qualities 
 and results, residing, I know not where, in words, in pic- 
 tures, in the ordering of ideas, in felicities indescribable, 
 by means whereof, coming from his tongue, all things 
 seemed mended ; truth seemed more true ; probability 
 more plausible ; greatness more grand ; goodness more 
 awful ; every affection more tender than when coming 
 from other tongues, — these are in all his eloquence. 
 But sometimes it became individualized, and discrimi- 
 nated even from itself; sometimes place and circum- 
 stances, great interests at stake, a stage, an audience 
 fitted for the highest historic action, a crisis, personal or 
 national, upon him, stirred the depths of that emotional 
 nature as the anger of the goddess stirs the sea on which 
 the great epic is beginning ; strong passions, themselves 
 kindled to intensity, quickened every faculty to a new 
 life ; the stimulated associations of ideas brought all 
 treasures of thought and knowledge within command ; 
 the spell, which often held his imagination fast, dissolved, 
 and she arose and gave him to choose of her urn of gold ; 
 earnestness became vehemence, the simple, perspicuous, 
 measured and direct lano;ua2;e became a headlons;, full 
 and burning tide of speech ; the discourse of reason, 
 wisdom, gravity, and beauty, changed to that J&tvou^g, 
 that rarest consummate eloquence, grand, rapid, pa- 
 thetic, terrible ; the cdiqidd immensum .infinitumque that 
 
70 
 
 Cicero iniglit liave recognized ; the ma.ster triumpli of 
 man in the happiest opportunity of his noblest power. 
 
 Siicli ( levation above himself, in congressional debate, 
 was most uncommon. .**^omc such there were in the 
 great discu.^sions of executive power following the re- 
 moval of the deposits, which they who heard them will 
 never forget, and some which re.st in the tradition of 
 hearers only. But there were other fields of oratory on 
 "which, under the inlluence of more uncommon springs 
 of insjuration, he exemplified, in still other forms, an 
 elo(|uence in which I do not know that he has had a, 
 superior among men. Addressing masses by tens of 
 thousands in the open air, on the urgent political ques- 
 tions of the da}'; or designated to lead the meditations 
 of an hour devoted to the remembrance of some national 
 era, or of some incident marking the progress of the na- 
 tion, and lifting him up to a view of what is and what is 
 past, and some indistinct revelation of the glory that 
 lies in the future, or of some great historical name, just 
 borne ]jy the nation to his tomb — we have learned that 
 then and there, at the base of Bunker Ilill, before the 
 corner-stone was laid, and again when from the finished 
 column the centuries looked on him ; in Fauueil Hall, 
 mourning for those with whose spoken or written elo- 
 quence of freedom its arches had so often resounded ; ou 
 the rock of Plj'niou'h ; before the capitol, of which there 
 ^hall not be one stone left on another, before his memory 
 shall have ceased to live — In such scenes, mifettered by 
 the laws of forensic or parliamentary debate, multitudes 
 uncounted lifting up their cyi}f^ to him ; some groat his- 
 torical scenes of America around — all syml)()ls of her 
 glory, : nd art, and power, and fortune, there — voices 
 of the past, not unheard — shapes beckoning from the 
 future, not unseen — sometimes that mighty intellect, 
 
71 
 
 borne upwards to a heiglit and kindled to an illumina- 
 tion which we shall see no more, wrought out, as it 
 were, in an instant, a picture of vision, warning, predic- 
 tion ; the jji'ogi'ess of the nation ; the contrasts of its 
 eras ; the heroic deaths ; the motives to patriotism ; the 
 maxims and arts imperial by which the glory has been 
 gathered and may be heightened — wrought out, in an 
 mstant, a picture to fade only when all record of our 
 mind shall die. 
 
 In looking over the public remains of his oratory, it is 
 striking to remark how, even in that most sober, and 
 massive understanding and nature, you see gathered and 
 expressed the characteristic sentiments and the passing 
 time of our America. It is the strong old oak, which 
 ascends before you ; yet our soil, our heaven, are attest- 
 ed in it, as perfectly as if it were a flower that could 
 grow in no other climate, in no other hour of the year 
 or day. Let me instance in one thing only. It is a 
 peculiarity of some schools of eloquence, that they em- 
 body and utter, not merely the individual genius and 
 character of the speaker, but a national consciousness ; 
 a national era ; a mood ; a hope ; a dread ; a despair, in 
 which you listen to the spoken history of the time. 
 There is an eloquence of an expiring nation; such as 
 seems to sadden the glorious speech of Demosthenes ; 
 such as breathes grand and gloomy from the visions of 
 the prophets of the last days of Israel and Judah ; such 
 as gave a spell to the expression of Grattan, and of Kos- 
 suth — the sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the 
 words which man may utter, or which man may hear, 
 the eloquence of a perishing nation. There is another 
 eloquence, in which the national consciousness of a 
 young, or renewed and vast strength ; of trust in a daz- 
 zling, certain, and limitless future ; an inward glorying 
 
72 
 
 in victories yet to be won, sounds out as by voice of 
 clarion, cliallcngin;^ to contest for the highest prize of 
 earth — such as that in wliich the leader of Israel in its 
 lirst days holds up to the new nation the land of Prom- 
 ise ; such as that which in the well imagined speeches 
 scattered by Livy, over the history of the '• majestic 
 series of victories," speaks the li(^man consciousness of 
 growing aggrandizement wliich should subject the world; 
 such as that, through which, at the tribunes of her revo- 
 lution, in the bulletins of her rising Soldier, France told 
 to tlie world her dream of glory. And of this kind, 
 somewhat, is ours ; cheerful ; hopeful ; trusting, as befits 
 youth and spring ; the eloquence of a State, beginning 
 to ascend to the first class of power, eminence, and con- 
 sideration ; and conscious of itself It is to no purpose 
 that they tell you it is in bad taste ; that it partakes of 
 arrogance and vanity ; that a true national goodbrecd- 
 ing would not know, or seem to know, whether the nation 
 is old or \'ounu:: whether the tides of her beini; are in 
 their tlow or ebb ; whether these coursers of the sun arc 
 sinking, slowly to rest, wearied with a journey of a thou- 
 sand years, or just bounding from the Orient unbreathed. 
 Higher laws than those of taste determine the conscious- 
 ness of nations. Higher laws than those of taste deter- 
 mine the general forms of the expression of that conscious- 
 ness. Let the downward n<j:o of America find its ora- 
 tors, and poets, and artists, to erect its spirit; or grace, 
 and soothe its dying; be it ours to go up with Webster 
 to the rock; the monument ; the capitol ; and bid '• the 
 distant generations hail I" 
 
 In this connection remark, somewhat more generally, 
 to how extraordinary an extent he had, by his acts, 
 words, thoughts, or the events of his life, associated him- 
 self Ibrever, in the memory of all of us, with every his- 
 
^3 
 
 torical incident, or at least Avith every historical epoch ; 
 with every policy, with every glory, with every great 
 name and fundamental institution, and grand or beauti- 
 ful image, which are peculiarly and pro23erly American. 
 Look backwards to the planting of Plymouth, and James- 
 town ; to the various scenes of colonial life in peace and 
 war ; to the opening, and march, and close of the revolu- 
 tionary drama — to the age of the Constitution — to 
 Washington, and Franklin, and Adams, and Jefferson — to 
 the whole train of causes from the Reformation down- 
 wards, which prepared us to be Republicans — to that 
 other train of causes which led us to be Unionists ; look 
 round on field, workshop, and deck, and hear the music 
 of labor rewarded, fed and protected — look on the bright 
 sisterhood of the States, each singing as a seraph in her 
 motion, yet blending in a common beam and swelling a 
 common harmony — and there is nothing which does not 
 bring him by some tie to the memory of America. 
 
 We seem to see his form and hear his deep grave 
 speech everywhere. By some felicity of his personal 
 life ; by some wise, deep, or beautiful word spoken or 
 written ; by some service of his own, or some commem- 
 oration of the services of others, it has come to pass that 
 " our granite hills, our inland seas and prairies, and fresh, 
 unbounded, magnificent wilderness ; " our encircling 
 ocean ; the resting place of the Pilgrims ; our new-born 
 sister of the Pacific ; our popular assemblies ; our free 
 schools, all our cherished doctrines of education, and of 
 the infiuence of religion, and material policy and law, 
 and the Constitution, give us back his name. What 
 American landscape will you look on — what subject of 
 American interest will you study — what source of hope 
 or of anxiety, as an American, will you acknowledge, 
 that it does not recall him ? 
 
I have rcservctl, until I could treat it as a separate and 
 fnial topic, the consideration of the morality oi" Mr. Web- 
 ster's public character and life. To his true lame, to 
 the kind and degree of influence which that large series 
 of great actions, and those embodied thoughts of great 
 intellect are to exert on the future — this is the all-im- 
 portant consideration. In the last speech which he made 
 in the Senate — the last of tho5e w hich he made, as he 
 said, for the Con.stitution and the Union, and which he 
 might have commended, as Bacon his name and mem- 
 ory, " to men's charitable speeches, to foreign nation.^, 
 and the next ages," yet Avith a better hope, he asserted 
 — " The ends 1 aim at shall be those of my country, my 
 God, and truth." Is that praise his? 
 
 Until the seventh day of March, 1850, 1 think it would 
 have* been accorded to him by an almost universal 
 acclaim, — as general, and as expressive of profound and 
 intelligent conviction, and of enthusiasm, love, and trust, 
 as ever saluted conspicuous statesmanship, tried by many 
 crises of afliiirs in a great nation, agitated ever by par- 
 ties, and wholly free. 
 
 That he had admitted into his heart a desire to win, 
 by deserving them, the highest forms of jjublic honor, 
 manv would have said : and thev who loved him most 
 fondly, and felt the truest solicitude that he should carry 
 a good conscience and pure fame brightening to the end, 
 would not have feared to concede. For he was not 
 iirnorant of himself, and he therefore knew that there 
 was nothing within the l^nion. Constitution, and law, too 
 hiuh. or too larw, or too dillicult for him. He Itelieved 
 that his natural or his acipiired al)ilitie.s and his policy 
 of administration, would contribute to the true glory of 
 America; and he held no tlieory of ethics which requir- 
 ed him to disparage, to suppress, to ignore vast capaci- 
 
75 
 
 ties of public service merely because they were liis own. 
 If the fleets of Greece were assembling, and her tribes 
 buckling on their arms from Laconia to Mount Olympus, 
 from the promontory of Sunium to the isle larthest to 
 the west, and the great epic action was opening, it was 
 not for him to feign insanity or idiocy, to escape the per- 
 ils and the honor of command. But that all this in him 
 had been eVer in subordination to a principled and beau- 
 tiful public virtue ; that every sectional bias, every party 
 tie, as well as every personal aspiring, had been uniform- 
 ly held by him for nothing against the claims of coun- 
 try ; that nothing lower than country seemed worthy 
 enough — nothing smaller than country large enough — 
 for that great heart, would not have been questioned by 
 a whisper. Ah ! if at any hour before that day he had 
 died, how would then the great procession of the peo- 
 ple of America — the great triumphal procession of the 
 dead — have moved onward to his grave — the sublim- 
 ity of national sorrow, not contrasted, not outraged by 
 one feeble voice of calumny ! 
 
 In that antecedent public life, embracing from 1812 
 to 1850 — a period of thirty-eight years — I find grand- 
 est proofs of the genuineness and comprehensiveness of 
 his patriotism, and the boldness and manliness of his 
 jDublic virtue. He began his career of politics as a 
 federalist. Such v/as his father — so beloved and rever- 
 ed ; such his literary and professional companions ; such, 
 although by no very decisive or certain preponderance, 
 the community in which he was bred and was to live. 
 Under that name of party he entered Congress, per- 
 sonally, and by connection, opposed to the w\ar, which 
 was thought to bear with such extreme sectional severity 
 upon the North and East. And yet, one might almost 
 say that the only thing he imbibed from federalists or 
 
TO 
 
 federalism, ^vas love and jidiniration for tlie Constitution 
 as the means of union. Tliat passion he did inherit 
 from them ; tliat lie cherished. 
 
 lie came into Con^^ress, opposed, as I have said, to 
 the Avar; and hehold hiui, if you would judge of the 
 quality of his political ethics, in opposition. Did those 
 eloquent lip.s, at a time of life when vehemence and im- 
 prudence are expected, if ever, and not ungraceful, let 
 fall ever one word of faction? Did lie ever deny one 
 power to the general government, which the soundest 
 expositors of all creeds have allowed it ? Did he ever 
 breathe a syllable which could excite a region, a State, 
 a family of States, against the Union — which could hold 
 out hope or aid to the enemy? — which sought or tend- 
 ed to turn back or to chill the fiery tide of a new and 
 intense nationality, then bursting np, to How and burn 
 till all things appointed to America to do shall be ful- 
 filled? These questions in their sukstance, he put to 
 Mr. Calhoun, in 1838, in the Senate, and that great 
 man — one of the authors of the war — just then, only 
 then, in relations unfriendly to Mr. Webster, and who 
 had just insinuated a reproach on his conduct in the 
 war, was silent. Did ^h\ Webster content himself even 
 witli objecting to the details of the mode in which the 
 administration waged the war? No, indeed. Taught by 
 his constitutional studies tliat the Union was made in 
 part for commerce, familiar \\ith the habits of our long 
 line of coast, knowing well how many sailors and fisher- 
 men, driven from every sea by embargo and war, burned 
 to go to the gun-deck and avenge the long wrongs of 
 Enirland on the element where she had inllicted them, 
 his opposition to Ihc war maniiested itself hy teaching 
 the nation that the deck was her field of fame. X»n illi 
 mjH'riiuH j)ciaf/i nacritm que IridcnUuiij scd nohisy sorle dulum. 
 
77 
 
 But I might recall otlier evidence of the sterling and 
 luiusnal qualities of his public virtue. Look in how 
 manly a sort he, not merely conducted a particular argu- 
 ment or a particular speech, but in how manly a sort, in 
 how high a moral tone, he uniformly dealt with the 
 mind of his country. Politicians got an advantage of 
 him for this while he lived ; let the dead have just praise 
 to-day. Our public life is one long electioneering, and 
 even Burke tells you that at popular elections the most 
 rigorous casuists will remit something of their severity. 
 But where do you find him flattering his countrymen, 
 indirectly or directly, for a vote ? On what did he ever 
 place himself but good counsels and useful service ? His 
 arts were manly arts, and he never saw a day of tempta- 
 tion when he would not rather fall than stand on anv 
 other. Who ever heard that voice cheering the people 
 on to rapacity, to injustice, to a vain and guilty glory? 
 Who ever saw that pencil of light hold up a picture of 
 manifest destiny to dazzle the fancy ? How anxiously 
 rather, in season and out, by the energetic eloquence of 
 his youth, by his counsels bequeathed on the verge of a 
 timely grave, he preferred to teach that by all possible 
 acquired sobriety of mind, by asking reverently of the 
 past, by obedience to the law, by habits of patient and 
 legitimate labor, by the cultivation of the mind, by the 
 fear and worship of God, we educate ourselves for the 
 future that is revelling. Men said he did not sympa- 
 thize with the masses, because his phraseology was 
 rather of an old and simple school, rejecting the nauseous 
 and vain repetitions of humanity and philanthropy, and 
 progress and brotherhood, in which may lurk heresies so 
 dreadful, of socialism or disunion ; in which a selfish, 
 hollow, and shallow ambition may mask itself — the 
 syren song which would lure the pilot from his course. 
 
 7* 
 
78 
 
 But I sav lliat lie d'ul svini^atliizc Avitli them ; and, be- 
 cause he did, he came to thoni not Mith aduhition, but 
 ^vith truth; not ^vitll ^vord.s to please, but ^vith meas- 
 ures to serve them ; not that his popuhir sympathies 
 were less, but that his personal and intellectual dignity 
 and his pu])lic morality -were greater. 
 
 And on the seventh day of March, and down to the 
 final scene, niight he not still say as ever before, that 
 "all the ends he aimed at were his country's, his God's, 
 uid truth's." lie declared, "I speak to-day for the 
 preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause. I 
 speak to-day out of a solicitous and anxious heart for the 
 restoration to the country of that quiet and harmony, 
 ■which make the blessings of this Union so rich and so 
 dear to us all. These are the motives and the sole mo- 
 tives that influence me." If in that declaration he was 
 sincere, was he not bound in conscience to give the 
 counsels of that day? What Avcrc they? What was 
 the siniz:le one for which his i)olitical morality was called 
 in question? Only that a provision of the Federal Con- 
 stitution, ordaining the restitution of fugitive slaves, 
 should be executed according to its true meaning. This 
 only. And might he not in good conscience keep the 
 Constitution in this part, and in all, lor the preservation 
 of the Union ? 
 
 Under liis oath to support it, and to support it all, and 
 with his opinions of that duty so long held, proclaimed 
 imifonnh-. in whose vindication on some great days, he 
 had found the chief opportunity of his personal glory, 
 might he not, in good conscience support it, and all of it, 
 even if he could not, and no lniinan intelligence could, 
 certainly, know, that the extreme evil would follow, in 
 innuediate consequence, its violation ? "Was it so recent 
 a doctrine of his that the Constitution was obligatory 
 
79 
 
 upon the national and individual conscience, that you 
 should ascribe it to sudden and irresistible temptation ? 
 Why, what had he, quite down to the seventh of March, 
 that more truly individualized him — what had he more 
 characteristically his own — wherewithal had he to glory 
 more or other than all beside, than this very doctrine of 
 the sacred and permanent obligation to support each 
 and all parts of that great compact of union and justice? 
 Had not this been his distinction, his specialiti/ — almost 
 the foible of his greatness — the darling and master pas- 
 sion ever ? Consider that that was a sentiment which 
 had been part of his conscious nature for more than 
 sixty years ; that from the time he bought his first copy 
 of the Constitution on the handkerchief, and revered 
 parental lips had commended it to him, with all other 
 holy and beautiful things, along with lessons of rever- 
 ence to God, and the belief and love of His Scriptures, 
 along with the doctrine of the catechism, the unequalled 
 music of Watts, the name of Washiugton — there had 
 never been an hour that he had not held it the master 
 work of man — just in its ethics, consummate in its 
 practical wisdom, paramount in its injunctions ; that 
 every 3' ear of life had deepened the original impression : 
 that as his mind opened, and his associations Avidened, 
 he found that every one for whom he felt respect, in- 
 structors, theological and moral teachers, his entire party 
 connection, the opposite party, and the whole countr}'-, 
 so held it, too; that its fruits of more than half a cen- 
 tury of union, of happiness, of renown, bore constant and 
 clear witness to it in his mind ; that it chanced that 
 certain emergent and rare occasions had devolved on 
 him to stand forth to maintain it, to vindicate its inter- 
 pretation, to vindicate its authority, to unfold its work- 
 ings and uses ; that he had so acquitted himself of that 
 
80 
 
 opportunity as to have won the title of its Expounder 
 and Defender, s(j that his proudest memories, his most 
 prized renown, referred to it. and were entwined with 
 it — Mild <;iv whether with such antecedents, readiness 
 to execute, or disposition to evade, would have heen the 
 hardest to ex^jlain ; likeliest to suggest the surmise of a 
 new temptation! lie who knows any thing of man, 
 knows that his vote for heginning the restoration of har- 
 mony Ijy keeping tlie whole Constitution, was deter- 
 mined, was necessitated hy the great law of sequences — 
 a great law of cause and efleet, running hack to his 
 mother's arms, as resistless as the law ^Yllich moves the 
 system about the sun — and that he must have given it, 
 althouu'h it liad l)een opened to him in vision, that 
 within the next natural day his "eyes should he turned 
 to behold for the last time the sim in heaven." 
 
 To accuse him in that act of '•• sinning against his own 
 con.sciencc," is to charge, one of these things; eitlicr 
 that no well instructed conscience can approve and 
 maintain the Constitution, and each of its parts ; and 
 therefore that his, by inference, did not approve it ; or 
 tliat he had never employed the proper means of in- 
 structing his conscience; and therefore its approval, if it 
 Avere given, was itself an immorality. The accuser must 
 assert one of these propositions, lie will not deny, I 
 take it for granted, that the conscience requires to be in- 
 structed by political teaching, in order to guide the citi- 
 zen, or the i)ublic man aright, in the matter of political 
 duties. Will he say that the moral .'sentiments alone, 
 whatever their origin ; whether factitious and deriva- 
 tive, or });ircel of the si)irit of the child and born with 
 it ; thai tlic\- alone, by Ibrce of strict and mere ethical 
 training, become (|ualilie(l to pronounce authoritatively 
 whether the Constitution, or any other vast, and com- 
 
. 81 
 
 plex citil policy, as a whole, whereby a nation is creat- 
 ed, and preserved, ought to have been made, or ought 
 to be executed ? Will he venture to tell you that if 
 your conscience approves the Union, the Constitution in 
 all its parts, and the law which administers it, that you 
 are bound to obey and uphold tliem; and if it disap- 
 proves, you must, according to your measure, and in 
 your circles of agitation, disobey and subvert them, and 
 leave the matter there — forgetting or designedly omit- 
 ting to tell you also that you are bound, in all good 
 faith and diligence to resort to studies and to teachers 
 ah extra — in order to determine whether the conscience 
 ought to approve or disapprove the Union, the Constitu- 
 tion and the law, in view of the ivhole aggregate of their 
 nature and fruits ? Does he not perfectly know that 
 this moral faculty, however trained, by mere moral 
 institution, specifically directed to that end, to be tender, 
 sensitive, and peremptory, is totally unequal to decide 
 on any action, or any thing, but the very simplest ; that 
 which produces the most palpable and immediate result 
 of unmixed good, or unmixed evil ; and that when it 
 comes to judge on the great mixed cases of the world, 
 where the consequences are numerous, their develop- 
 ment slow and successive, the light and shadow of a 
 blended and multiform good and evil spread out on the 
 lifetime of a nation, that then morality must borrow 
 from history; from politics; from reason operating on 
 history and politics ; her elements of determination ? 
 I think he must agree to this. He must agree, I think, 
 that to single out one provision in a political system of 
 many parts and of elaborate interdependence, to take it 
 all alone, exactly as it stands, and without attention to 
 its origin and history ; the necessities, morally resistless, 
 which prescribed its introduction into the system, the 
 
82 
 
 iin measured jrood in other forms ^vl^K•ll its allowance 
 buys, the nnniea.surecl evil in otlier f(jnns -which its al- 
 lowance hinders — ^vithout attention to these, to present 
 it in all '-the nakedness of a metaphysical abstraction" 
 to the mere sensil/dities ; and ask if it is inhnman, and 
 if thev answer accordint^ to their kind, that it is, then 
 to say that the problem is solved, and the right of diso- 
 bedience is made clear — lie must agree that this is not 
 to exalt reason and conscience, but to outrage both, 
 lie must agree that although the supremacy of con- 
 science is absolute ^vllether the decision be right or 
 •wrong, that is, accordlnr/ to ihe real quaUlics of thinf/s or not, 
 that there lies back of the actual conscience, and its 
 actual decisions, the great anterior duty of having a 
 conscience that i<hall dcrulc accordinrj to the real qualities of 
 things; that to this vast attainment some adequate 
 knowdedge of the real (jualities of the things ^vhich are 
 to be subjected to its inspection is indispensable ; that if 
 the matter to be judged of is any thing so large, com- 
 plex, and conventional as the duty of the citizen, or the 
 public man, to the State ; the duty of preserving or de- 
 stroying the order of things in ^vhich ^ve are born ; the 
 duty of executing or violating one of the provisions of 
 organic law \\\\\Ai the country, having a 'svide and clear 
 view before and after, had deemed a needful instrumen- 
 tal means for the preservation of that order; that then 
 it is not enouLrh to relegate the citizen, or the public 
 man, to a higher law, and an interior illumination, and 
 leave him there. Sucli discourse is '-as the stars, uhich 
 give so Uttle light because they arc so high." He must 
 agree that in such case, morality itself should go to 
 school. There must be science as well as conscience, as 
 old Fuller has said. Slie nuist her.^elf learn of history; 
 she must learn of politics; she must consult the build- 
 
S2 
 
 o 
 
 ers of the State, the living and the dead, to know its 
 value, its aspects in the long run, on happiness and 
 morals; its dangers; the means of its preservation; the 
 maxims and arts imperial of its glory. To fit her to be 
 the mistress of civil life, he will agree, that she must 
 come out for a space from the interior round of emo- 
 tions, and subjective states and contemplations, and in- 
 trospection, " cloistered, unexercised, unbreathed" — and, 
 carrying with her nothing but her tenderness, her scru- 
 pulosity, and her love of truth, survey the objective 
 realities of the State ; ponder thoughtfully on the com- 
 plications, and impediments, and antagonisms which 
 make the noblest politics but an aspiring, an approxima- 
 tion, a compromise, a tj^pe, a shadow of good to come, 
 " the buying of great blessings at great prices " — and 
 there learn civil duty secundum suhjcctam matcriam. " Add 
 to your virtue knowledge " — or it is no virtue. 
 
 And now, is he who accuses Mr. Webster of " sinning 
 against his own conscience," quite sure that he knows, 
 that that conscience, — well instructed by profoundest 
 political studies, and thoughts of the reason ; well in- 
 structed by an appropriate moral institution sedulously 
 applied, did not commend and approve his conduct to 
 himself? Does he know, that he had not anxiously, and 
 maturely studied the ethics of the Constitution ; and as 
 a question of ciMcs, but of ethics applied to a stupendous 
 problem of practical life, and had not become satisfied 
 that they were right? Does he know that he had 
 not done this, when his faculties were all at their best ; 
 and his motives under no suspicion ? May not such an 
 inquirer, for aught you can know ; may not that great 
 mind have verily and conscientiously thought that he 
 had learned in that investigation many things? May 
 he not have thought that he learned, that the duty of 
 
Si 
 
 tbo inluibitants of the free States, in that day's extrem- 
 it\-. t(j tlie repuhlic, the duty at all events of statesmen, 
 to the repuhhc, is a little too large, and delicate, and dif- 
 ficult to Ije all comprehended in the single emotion of com- 
 passion for one class of persons in the commonwealth, or 
 in carrying out the single principle of ahstract, and natu- 
 ral, and violent justice to one class? May he not have 
 thought that he found there some stupendous exemplifi- 
 cations of -what we read of. in books of casuistry, the 
 "dialectics of conscience," as conflicts of duties; such 
 thintrs as the conflicts of the greater with the less: con- 
 flicts of the attainable with the visionary ; conflicts of the 
 real with the seeming ; and may he not have been 
 soothed to learn tliat the evil which he found in this 
 part of the Constitution was the least of twoj was nna- 
 ■voidable; -was compensated; was justified; was com- 
 manded, as l)y a voice from the mount, by a more ex- 
 ceeding and enduring good? May he not have thought 
 that he had learned, that the grandest, most diilicult, 
 most pleasing to God, of the achievements of secular 
 wisdom and jjliilanthropy, is the building of a State; 
 that of the first class of grandeur and difliculty, and ac- 
 ceptableness to Ilim, in this kind, was the building of 
 our own : that unless everyljody of consequence enough 
 to 1)0 heard of in (he age and generation of "Washington 
 — unless that whole age and generation were in a con- 
 spiracy to clicat themselves, and history, and posterity, 
 a certain j)olicy of concession and forbearance of region 
 to region, was indispensalde to rear that master work of 
 man ; and that that same policy of concession and for- 
 bearance is as indispensabh', more so. now. to aflbrd a 
 rational ground of hope for its })reservation ? I\lay he 
 not have tiiought that ho liad learned that the obliga- 
 tion, if such in any sense you may call it, of one State to 
 
85 
 
 allow itself to become an asylum for those flying from 
 slavery in another State, was an obligation of benevo- 
 lence, of humanity onl}', not of justice ; that it must 
 therefore, on ethical principles, be exercised under all 
 the limitations which regulate and condition the be- 
 nevolence of States ; that therefore each is to exercise 
 it in strict subordination to its own interests, estimated 
 by a wise statesmanship, and a well instructed public 
 conscience ; that benevolence itself, even its ministra- 
 tions of mere good-will, is an affair of measure and of 
 proportions; and must choose sometimes between the 
 greater good, and the less ; that if, to the highest degree, 
 and widest diflusion of human happiness, a Union of 
 States such as ours, some free, some not so, was neces- 
 sary; and to such Union the Constitution was neces- 
 sary ; and to such a Constitution this clause was neces- 
 sary, humanity itself prescribes it, and presides in it ? 
 May he not have thought that he learned that there are 
 proposed to humanity in this world many fields of be- 
 neficent exertion ; some larger, some smaller, some more, 
 some less expensive and profitable to till ; that among 
 these it is always lawful, and often indispensable to make 
 a choice ; that sometimes, to acquire the right, or the 
 ability to labor in one, it is needful to covenant, not to 
 invade another ; and that such covenant, in partial re- 
 straint, rather in reasonable direction of philanthropy, 
 is good in the forum of conscience ; and setting out with 
 these very elementary maxims of practical morals, may 
 he not have thought that he learned from the care- 
 ful study of the facts of our history, and opinions, that 
 to acquire the power of advancing the dearest interests 
 of man, through generations countless, by that unequal- 
 led security of peace and progress, the Union ; the power 
 of advancing the interest of each State, each region, each 
 
 8 
 
86 
 
 relation — the slave and the master; the power of sub- 
 jecting!:: a wliole continent all astir, and on fire with the 
 emulation of youni,^ republics ; of subjecting it, through 
 a'-'es of household calm, to the sweet influences of Chris- 
 tianit y, of culture, of the great, gentle, and sure reformer, 
 time, that to enable us to do this, to enable us to grasp 
 this boundless and ever-renewing harvest of philan- 
 thropy, it would have been a good bargain — that hu- 
 manity herself would have approved it — to have bound 
 ourselves never so much as to look across the line into 
 the inclosure of Southern municipal slavery ; certainly 
 never to enter it ; still less, still less to 
 
 " Pluck its berries harsh and crude, 
 And with forced fingers rude 
 Shatter its leaves before the mellowing year." 
 
 Until the accuser who charges him, now that he is in 
 his grave, " with having sinned against his conscience," 
 will assert that the conscience of a public man may not, 
 must not, be instructed by profound knowledge of the 
 vast subject-matter with which public life is conversant 
 — even as the conscience of the mariner may be and 
 must be instructed by the knowledge of navigation ; 
 and that of the pilot by the knowledge of the depths 
 and shallows of the coast ; and that of the engineer of 
 the boat and the train, by the knowledge of the capaci- 
 ties of liis mechanism, to achieve a proposed velocity ; 
 and will assert that he is certain that the consummate 
 science of our great statesman, was felt hj himself to ^;;r- 
 scnbcto his moralifi/ another conduct than that which he 
 adopted, and that he thus consciously outraged that 
 " sense of duty which pursues us ever" — is he not in- 
 excusable, whoever he is, that so judges another ? 
 
 But it is time that this eulogy was spoken. My heart 
 
87 
 
 goes back into the coffin there with him, and I would 
 pause. I went — it is a day or two since — alone, to 
 see again the home which he so dearly loved, the cham- 
 ber where he died, the grave in which they laid him — 
 all habited as when 
 
 " His look drew audience still as night, 
 Or summer's noontide air," 
 
 till the heavens be no more. Throughout that spacious 
 and calm scene all things to the eye showed at first 
 unchanged. The books in the library, the portraits, the 
 table at which he wrote, the scientific culture of the 
 land, the course of agricultural occupation, the coming 
 in of harvests, fruit of the seed his own hand had scat- 
 tered, the animals and implements of husbandry, the 
 trees planted by him in lines, in copses, in orchards, by 
 thousands, the seat under the noble elm on which he 
 used to sit to feel the south-west wind at evening, or 
 hear the breathings of the sea, or the not less audible 
 music of the starry heavens, all seemed at first un- 
 changed. The sun of a bright day, from which, how- 
 ever, something of the fervors of midsummer were 
 wanting, fell temperately on them all, filled the air on 
 all sides with the utterances of life, and gleamed on the 
 Ions; line of ocean. Some of those whom on earth he 
 loved best, still were there. The great mind still seemed 
 to preside ; the great presence to be with you ; you 
 might expect to hear again the rich and playful tones of 
 the voice of the old hospitality. Yet a moment more, 
 and all the scene took on the aspect of one great monu- 
 ment, inscribed with his name, and sacred to his memory. 
 And such it shall be in all the future of America ! The 
 sensation of desolateness, and loneliness; and darkness, 
 
88 
 
 uiih uliidi you wc it now, Mill pass away ; the sharp 
 ■^rwi' of love ami friendship will become soothed ; men 
 uill H'pair thither as they are wont to commemorate 
 tJK" great days of history ; the same glance shall take 
 in, and the twinie emotions shall ^aeet and hles.s the 
 Il.irhor of the Pilgrims, and the Tomlj of Webster. 
 
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