E 302 X-Ot.' '^t\s^Xn & f inkncg. No one has held IVIr. Webster's great powers in greater admiration, or his character in deeper reverence for many high and noble quaHties, than I have. I have regarded him as a national man, too great for even the great commonwealth of Massachusetts to claim him as exclusively her own, notwithstanding Faneuil Hall and Bunker Hill have so often trembled at the touch of his matchless eloquence. Most of what is written of him, I read with delight. The faintest echo of his vast fame gives me pleasure. It was a week ago that my eye rested on a work entitled " Reminiscences of Daniel Webster at the bar," by Peter Harvey. I anticipated both pleasure and profit from its perusal. I felt that a rich intellectual feast was about to be spread out before me ; for the banquet was provided by one who stood in the relation of an intimate and confi- dential friend to Mr. Webster, and who had enjoyed rare opportunities of studying the lights and shad- ows of his remarkable life. But when I turned to pages 1 21-123 of the book, I can scarcely express the pain and astonishment which their perusal oc- casioned. Mr. Harvey reports, that Mr. Webster told him, that he had, on one occasion, locked Mr. Pinkney up in one of the grand jury rooms of the capitol, and extorted from him, as he stood trembling like an aspen leaf, an humble apology which was re- peated the next day in open court. Now it is a very painful thing to be compelled to expose the gross inaccuracy of this whole statement ; and yet it will be clearly seen, that no near relative of Mr. Pinkney can suffer this to pass without the rebuke it so richly merits. All that is left to my uncle is his fair name ; and that no man shall assail with impunity. P^ither Mr. Webster did say all that is reported of him by Mr. Plarvey, or Mr. Harvey made it up, or else Mr. Harvey is in grievous er- ror, which I am free to avow is my own deliberate judgment. For this is the only solution of the problem which can save the memory of Mr. Webs- ter from the mor.t serious impeachment. The language imputed to Mr. Webster is as fol- lows. I prefer always to make exact quotations : "We passed into one of the ante-rooms of the capitol. I looked into one of the grand jury rooms, rather remote from the main court-room. There was no one in it, anil we entered. As we did so I looked at the door, and found that there was a key in the lock ; and, unobserveil by him, I turned the key and put it in my pocket. Mr. Pinkney seemed to be waiting with some astonishment. I ailvanced towards him and said: 'Mr. Pinkney, you grossly insulted me this morning, in the court room ; and not for the first lime either. In deference to your position and to the respect in which I hold the court I did not answer you as I was tempted to do, on the spot." He began to parley. I continued : 'you know you diti : don't add another sin to that; don't deny it ; you know you did it, and yuu know it was premeditated. It was deliberate ; it was pur- posely done ; and if you deny it, you state an untruth. Now I am here to say to you. once for all, that you must ask my pardon, and go into court to-morrow morning and repeat the apology, or else either you or I will go out of this room in a diiTerent condition from that in which we' entered it.' I w;is never more in earnest. He looked at me, and saw that my eyes were pretty dark and firm. He began to .say some- thing. I interrupted him. 'No explanations," said I, 'admit the fact, and take it back. I do not want another word from you except that. I will hear no explanation; nothing but that you admit it and recall it. ' He tiembled like an aspen leaf He again attempted to explain. Said I : ' there is no other course. I have the key in my poi^ket, and you must apologize, or take what I give 30U.' At that he hum- bled down, and said to me ; 'you arc right: I am sorry; I did intend to bluff you ; I regret it, and ask your jiardon.' 'Now, one promise before I open the door; and that is, that you will tomorrow morning state to the court that 3'ou have said things which wounded my feelings, and that you regret it.' Pinkney replied : 'I will do ^o.'" Harvey's J^rwrnmrna's of Daniel Webster, pp. 122, 123. Just before this graphic picture is drawn, Mr. Webster is represented as speaking of the posi- tion which Mr. Pinkney occupied, when he, Webs- ter, entered the bar at Washington. This is the language imputed to him by Mr. Harvey. It stands in closest connection: "I was a lawyer who had my living to get ; and I fell that, although I could not argue my cases as well as he cmild, still if my clients employed me, thev should have the best ability I had to give them, and I should do the work myself I did not propose to practice law in the vSupreme Court by proxy." Mark the next passage: •'I think that, in some pretty important cases I had, Mr. Pink- ney rather expected that I should fall into the current of his admirers, and divide my fees with him.'" 4 The italics are mine. Then follows this extraor- dinary sentence: "This I utterly refused to do. " Nothing but thought in the one sentence, a mere vague supposition, and in the next an utter refusal which is strangely irreconcilable with Mr. Webs- ter's acknowledged clearness of conception and ex- pression. No human ingenuity can reconcile the two sentences with each other, or bring them into agreement. How could he utterly refuse, when there was no application made? This by the way. Then follows immediately : "In some important case (I have forgotten now what the case was), Mr. Pinkney was employed to argue it against me. "On the occasion to which I refer, in some colloquial dis- cussion upon various minor points of the case, he treated me with contempt. He pooh-poohed, as much as to say it was not worth while to argue a point that I did not know anything about ; that I was no lawyer. I think he spoke of the '■gentle- man from ^'eiv Hampshire.'" (The italics are mine. ; "At any rate, it was a thing that every body in the court house, in- cluding the judges, could not fail to observe. Chief Justice Marshall himself was pained by it. It was very hard '' added Mr. Webster "for me to restrain my temper, and keep cool ; but I did so, knowing in what presence I stood." Now, in the first place, there are no grand jury rooms in the capitol, and never have been. In the second place, it is very unfortunate that Mr. Webster's memory should have failed just when it did; for the naming of the case would have prov- ed a very important link in the chain of circum- stances, and have helped us to meet the charge, so long delayed, in the way in which it should be met. Specification of //m^ and place is of price- 5 less value to a party accused. No one knew this better than Daniel Webster. It gives much of security to a person falsely arraigned, while it car- ries with it just responsibility to the accuser. Mr. Webster said, as Mr. Harvey reports, " I do not now remember what the case was." But while Mr. Webster did not remember the case, and therefore was unable to state it, it is perfectly ob- vious that it must have occurred, if it occurred at all, when Mr. Webster was new to the scene and while he was the " the gentleman from New Hampshire." For he had just spoken of Mr. Pinkney's position at the bar, when he made his first appearance in Washington, using this signifi- cant language : "I have my living to get. I felt that although I should not argue my cases as well as he could, &c. &c. I think he spoke of thegen- tleman from New Hampshire" — language which he would never have used at a later day, for it is well known that Mr. Webster knew his powers, and re- lied on them implicitly, when he had enjoyed a ripe experience in the practice of the Court. This is an important point, and deserves to be well considered. For it helps us to fix the case somewhere between the 3ears 1813 and 18 17, when Mr. Webster left New Hampshire for Mas- sachusetts. It does this, despite of Mr. Webster's remarkable failure of memory. I say remarkable, for it will be borne in mind, that he remembered the insult offered ; he remembered the apol- ogy enforced ; he remembered all that he said in the interview, to the minutest word ; he remember- 6 eel all that Pinkney did in his self-humiliation ; he remembered the effect on the Court: And yet, mir- abiU dichi^ he did not remember the case ! I call this a remarkable failure of memory, in one, who, it is said, retained in such vivid recollection all else that occurred, even to the key in the door. Mr. Webster went to Congress, (extra session,) from -A^^?c' Hainpsliire, in May, 1813. He remained a member until March 181 7. In 1817, he took up his permanent abode in Boston. This is a matter of history. During all this time he was counsel in only three cases in the Supreme Court — The St. Lawrence from New Hampshire, 18 14, Crai7ch,Vol. VIII, 435, The Grotius, CrancJi, Vol. viii, 467, and Paulet V. Clarke, 181 5, Cranch. Vol. ix, 295. The fewness of the cases ought to have assisted a memory less noted for its extraordinary retentive- ness than Mr. Webster's. In all this time, while Mr. Webster was a mem- ber of Congress from New Hampshire, I am bold to say, and [ defy contradiction, that he and Mr. Pinkney were never engaged in any case in the Supreme Court, either on the same side or oppo- site sides. I speak from the record. That cannot lie. Mr. Pinkney was not of the counsel in either of the cases above cited, and they were the only ones that Mr. Webster argued from 18 13 to 1817. In 18 16 Mr. Pinknc)' went abroad, and did not re- urn until 18 18. Am I not then warranted by the record, in say- ing that there is not the slightest ground for this storv which comes to us so hicjhlv colored, and 7 in such dramatic garb. On any fair interpreta- tion of the language imputed to Mr. Webster, we are justified in the conclusion : that the case, if it ever existed, must have been coetaneous with the period of his earlier practice at the bar of Washington, and while he was the "gen- tleman from New Hampshire." Now the rec- ords of the court show, that a conflict between Mr. Webster and Mr. Pinkney, in all those years, was a sheer impossibility, seeing they were never employed in the argument of the same cause from 1813 to 1817, in that highest tribunal of the coun- try.^ Can stronger proof be demanded that Mr. Har- vey is in error? Does it look like Daniel Webster, this speaking of a grand jury room in the capitol, when no such room is in existence, and this strange forgetfulness of the fact, that the records of the Court show the utter impossibility of the thing al- leged? It is indeed a matter of unfeigned surprise to me, that any one who shared Mr. Webster's confidence and love, could impute to him such a tissue of contradictions, llierc must be a mistake. In tenderness to Mr. Webster, I am constrained to believe there is. I feel that I might safely rest my defence here. For it is not possible to resist the evidence I have educed from the records, or to escape the clinch- ing force of the words, " the gentleman from New Hampshire"— words which ii'o limit t\\Q boundaries of the charge. But I will pursue the subject a step farther, and proceed now to show, that from 1817 to 1822, there is no shadow of proof, that such a scene as that portrayed occured, but proof directly the re- verse. The first case in which Mr. Pinkney appeared, after his return to the United States, was M'Cul- loch V. State of Maryland. Mr. Webster opened the argument on the same side with Mr. Pinkney. He was not then new to the scene, nor was he the gentleman from New Hampshire. He hailed from Massachusetts. It is obvious that there could have been no insult offered, and no apology made on that occasion. Justice Story, a Massachusetts man, passing Mr. Webster by, singles out Mr. Pinkney 's speech: "I never in my life heard a greater speech, it was worth a journey from Salem to hear it ; he spoke like a great statesman and patriot, and sound constitutional lawyer. 7\11 the cobwebs of sophistry and metaphysics about State sovereignty and State rights he brushed away with a mighty besom." (Story's life Vol. i. 325.) The late Virgil Maxy, whose tragic death on board the Princeton saddened all hearts, a man of rare ability, and an honored son of Maryland, said it was the greatest constitutional argument ever addressed to any court. It will be borne in mind that this was the very topic which Mr. Webster so ably and eloquently discussed in his immortal speech against Hayne, many years after. Story was full of rapture over that speech. Could it have been possible for him to have kept silence, if the great advocate from his native State had been 9 so wantonly outraged in open court by Mr. Pink- ney? Besides, in the unremembcred case to which Mr. Webster is reported to refer, they were on op- posite sides. " Mr. Pinkney was employed to aro-Lie it against me." The true state of the fact is this: they were op- posed to each other for the first time in 182 1, Wheaton, vi, 453; again in 1821, Wheaton, vi, 489; and finally in 1822, Ricard v. Clarke, Whea- ton, VII, io5. It will be remenbered that in all these cases Wheaton w^as the Reporter, and must have witnessed all that occurred. He wrote the life of William Pinkney, was himself a northern man, and yet not the slightest allusion is made by him to any difficulty, either insult offered, or apol- ogy made. In two of these cases Justice Story delivered the opinion of the Court ; and yet he is as profoundly silent, notwithstanding he did make mention of an incident that occurred between Pink- ney and Emmet, in the argument of a case in prize law. It will be borne in mind that this alleged inter- view between Webster and Pinkney was without witnesses. "There was no one in it, (the room) and we entered." So that if the narrative of Mr. Harvey be accepted as accurate, Mr. Webster must occupy the most unenviable position, to use no stronger language. His great antagonist was dead. The secret was kept carefully locked up in his own bos- om, until it could be divulged without the seeming possibility of a refutation, since the case was not remembered, and when there could be no responsi- lO bility incurred by the publication of it. A rose- colored description is given of his own heroic bravery, which is placed in a sort of poetic contrast with the dastardly cowardice of his rival. It is a very easy thing to hold prn^ate interviews with oth- er people, and long after they are dead, dress up the act behind the scene, so as to make an Achilles of ourselves, and base poltroons of them. But will any honorable man hold back what he has to say of another, until that other is dead; and then seek to blacken his character, when tl:e opportuni- ty of nailing the falsehood to the counter, if it be a falsehood, is denied him ? I leave all honorable men to answer. It may be laid down as a lule most equitable and just, that no man should ever attempt to draw a picture of himself in contrast with another, and no man should ever attempt to remove the veil that conceals a scene in which he was an actor with no witnesses present, where another was concerned, and that too, long after his death, and when the very case in which the scene occurred was forgotten. Permit a man to do this ; and who is safe from grossest vituperation and slander ? Stabbing in the dark is no feat of heroism. It is no indication of a mind bent on right, or a heart given to noble deeds of valor. No one who knew Mr. Pinkney will believe this story. It is too artistically drawn. Mr. Pinkney 's courage had been too often tested to be questioned. Of powerful physical frame, and a moral nerve that few men possessed in equal degree, he had no oc- I I casion to quake and tremble in the presence of the disting-uished son of Massachusetts, even though "his eyes were very dark and firm. " No man dared to brand him a pohroon while he was living. Mr. Webster confesses that he did not resent in open court the insult alleged to have been offered. His silence during Mr. Pinkney's lifetime must be his bitterest condemnation, if we accept as correct Mr. Harvey's account of the case. Mr. Harvey must be in error then. Otherwise, I should be forced to the conclusion that Mr. Webs- ter had boasted of a feat of valor which he never performed, while he took good care not to boast of it until he had taken the wise precaution to screen himself from all responsibility. It surprises me that any near friend of Mr. Webster should have failed to see the dilemma in which this narrative, if true, must place him. The trumpeter of his own fame, the traducer of another long since dead, with no witness adduced, and not even the case remem- bered ! I call the public to bear witness that this is a most wanton assault, calmly and deliberately made. The repose of the dead is invaded. The very grave is outraged. Pinkney is not alive to defend his fair name. Can any man who knew Mr. Webster be- lieve that he did so mean a thine as to indulge in such disorustinor self-laudation and sfross abuse of his dead rival? I hold that the narrative recorded is a moral impossibility. Daniel Webster was not a bully. Every instinct of his nature would have recoiled from such a scene. It is not like him. I 2 And no mdn who knew William Pinkney will be- lieve that Mr. Webster, if he had been a bully, would have dared to do it in Pinkney's lifetime, and to his face. It does not comport with the dig- nity of the Court, for Judge Marshall would have rebuked an act of such gross discourtesy on the spot. I turn then from Mr. Peter Harvey, who has re- corded it, to the many warm admirers of Mr. Webs- ter, and address to them this my solemn remon- strance. And I greatly mistake the character of the men to whom I address this appeal, if they do not discard the deed, as one of which Mr. Webs- ter could not possibly be guilty. I again declare that I do not believe that Mr. Harvey made it up. I am quite sure that he is earnest and honest in his conviction of its truth. But he is liable to error — and I am satisfied that he is in error — an error that does the grossest in- justice to both of these distinguished men. I can conceive how the mistake occurred. At all events, this is the only charitable construction I can put on the strange, strange narrative. It may be said that this defense is long delayed. My answer is, that I had no knowledge of the ex- istence of the book, or of its contents, a week ago. It may be said, why revive the subject at this late day? I reply, because that book may pass into his- tory : and also, because of the high reputation of its hero, it may be read in years to come, when men will not pause to enquire whether what it con- tains is true or false, and when, perhaps, silence '3 will be considered proof of acquiescence afford'r^ '"'%°*"' "''"»' '" *^ ^""^ ^^'lich might hi W li; p' ?°"^"^^"'- Mr. Webster's instruct- ing Wlham Pmlcney ,„ Biackstone mifrht excite i sm,Ie m tliose who know that Pinfeney^never part BhH-