ON THE
CHARACTER AND SERVICES
OF TIHE LATE
DANIEL WEBSTER,
PRONOUNCED AT T-IE REQUEST OF THE
Orlrrf aII fnumunIn   unanri[ nf tir CIRtq uf'10ilfrltptif,
JANUARY  18, 1853,
BY  WILLIAM   H. ALLEN, LL. D.,
PRESIDENT OF TIlE GIRARD COLLEGE FOPl O0PIlNS.
PHILADELPHIA:
CRISSY & MIARKLEY, PRINTERS, GOLDSMITHS HALL, LIBRARY STREET.
18 53.








FRO5M THE
1'OCTTIJALW%.Z3'r- 0O.FW CO>T. Y::DC'rT-BS
Thnursday, November 4, 1852.
Mr. Poulson offered the following resolutions:Whereas, The principles and opinions which Daniel Webster so nobly
advocated and sustained throughout] his eventful life, according to his own
words, are essential to the preservation of the Union, the maintenance of the
Constitution, and the advancement of the country to the highest stages of
prosperity and renown:-and these objects have constituted his Pole-star
during the whole of his political career, which extended through more than
half the period of the existence of the government, and
Whereas, When in the dispensations of His Providene, it is the will of the
Almighty Ruler of the Universe to withdraw, by death, from amongst us,
and from amidst his career of usefulness, such a man, such a friend, such a
gifted lover of his country, as Daniel Webster, we cannot but severely feel
and deeply deplore the event as a national affliction: it becomes us to bow
in reverential and prayerful submission before Him who gave, and who hath
taken away: and
Whereas, In the character and services of Daniel Webster, as a Statesman,
and as a Patriot, the people of this country have examples of pure devotion
to the public good at home, and of the just preservation of the dignity and
honor of his country abroad,-examnples, to be cherished and imitated;-and




4
although the bitterness of grief be upon us for his loss, yet the memory of
his deeds will be the more deeply enshrined, and live in brightness in the
hearts of his countrymen-encouraging, sustaining, the determination never
to depart from those glorious precepts he inculcated and practised alike with
the great fathers of this republic, Washington and his associates,-and never
forget the lessons taught by such wisdom and experience:
Therefore, Entertaining these sentiments and feelings, the Select and Common Councils of the City of Philadelphia, do
Resolve,
First, That it is expedient and proper, in further testimony of their respect
and veneration of the character and services of Daniel Webster, the great
expounder of our National Constitution, and the advocate of those principles
of government which have secured the unexampled prosperity and happiness
of our beloved country, —that, a day be assigned wherein we will devote our
minds to the contemplation of the life and labors of Daniel Webster-a blessing to the people-to Daniel Webster's death-a nation's loss; —and they
further
Resolve, That a Joint Special Committee, consisting of two members from
each Council, be appointed, who are hereby authorized to fix the day for the
purpose set forth in the foregoing resolution: to invite a citizen to pronounce
on that day, an oration on the character and services of the late Daniel
Webster; and to make such further arrangements as may be deemed suitable
and proper in order to effect the objects and purposes of these proceedings.
Which were read twice and passed.
The above preamble and resolutions were unanimously adopted at a meeting of Select and Common Councils, held on the 4th day of November, A. D.
1852, and the following Joint Special Committee appointed in accordance
therewith: Charles A. Poulson, Chairman, Samuel R. Randall, Albert G.
Waterman, and Joseph lI. Thomas.
(Attest)         CRAIG BIDDLE,
Clerkc of Common Council.




COMMITTEE ROOM, CITY HALL,
November 26th, 1852.
WILLIAM H. ALLEN, EsQ.
DEAR SIR: —The undersigned on behalf of a Joint Special Committee
appointed in pursuance of certain proceedings in Select and Common Councils of the City of Philadelphia, in relation to the death of the lamented
Daniel Webster,-a copy of which, contained in a portion of their Journal is
herewith enclosed,-respectfully take the liberty of waiting on you, to express their desire, that it may be convenient and agreeable to you to pronounce the eulogy suggested therein, on the character and services of that
eminent statesman and benefactor.
We have the honor to be,,Very respectfully,
Your obedient servants,
CHARLES A. POULSON,
A. G. WATERMAN,
Sub Committee, a-c.
Girard College, November 29, 1852.
GENTLEMEN — Though deeply conscious that I am not equal to the honorable duty which you have assigned me, I am constrained by a sense of my
obligations to yourselves and to the Select and Common Councils which you
represent, to comply with the request which you have so courteously made.
I have the honor to remain,
Most truly and respectfully, yours,
WILLIAM  H. ALLEN.
To M1essrs. CHARLES A. POULSO'N,
A. G. WATERMAN,
Sub- Committee of Arrangements.




Conmmittee Roonm, January 209, i853.
WILLIAM H. ALLEN, ESQ.
DEAR SIa:-The undersigned, a Special Committee appointed by Select
and Common Councils in furtherance of the objects of a preamble and resolutions passed by Councils on the 4th of November last; have peculiar gratification in requesting from you a copy of the eloquent and appropriate
Eulogium, illustrative of the life and character of the lamented Daniel
Webster, pronounced by you before Councils, and e large assemblage of our
fellow-citizens, on Tuesday, the 18th inst., at the Musical Fund Hall.
The Committee desire to see this eulogy preserved in a permanent form,
and especially because an opportunity will thus be presented to all of participating in the pleasure and advantage which was enjoyed by those who
were present at its oral enunciation.
We have the honor to be,
Very respectfully,
Your obedient servants,
CHAS. A. POULSON, Chairman.
A. G. WATERMAN,
SAMUEL J. RANDALL,
JOSEPH M. THOMAS,
Special Committee of Select and Common Councils.




THE exit of an unusual number of illustrious men,
both at home and abroad, has given a mournful interest to the past year. It was observed long ago, that
there are periods of peculiar brilliancy in history,
when many distinguished men cluster together; and
it would seem that there are also periods of gloom,
when the great depart together. In 1832 many bright
lights of literature and science went out-Goethe,
Spurzheim, Cuvier, Champolion, Crabbe, WValter Scott,
Jeremy Bcntham and Adam Clarke; and now, at the
close of a cycle of twenty years, death has again
aimed at shining marrs, and has selected this time a
constellation of statesmen. Among these, Wellington,
Clay, Webster, and Philadelphia's loved and honored
Sergeant, stand forth as names of mark-historical
men-who have done much to shape the destiny of




nations. And as we saw these stars one after another
melt into the light of a brighter hemisphere, until our
firmament grew dark, we sadly asked,
" When shall return
Such lustre to the coming years 9?
We are here, on the birth-day of one of these men,
to commemorate his life and to mourn his death.
Though Daniel Webster only passed the limit of three
score years and ten, we shall find, if we measure his
life by the changes which took place in the world
during its term, or by the growth of this country, or
by his own public services, that he lived longer than
the patriarchs. Born near the close of our revolutionary struggle; nurtured while the fathers of the Republic were laying the foundations of its prosperity in
national union; educated during the first trial of the
experiment of the new government; called to public
life during the second war of independence; holding
high posts of duty in seasons of uncommon difficulty
and danger, and devoting his ripest powers to the
defence of the Constitution and Union, he lived long
enough to finish his work, long enough for fame, though
not for our hopes, and died a great and not untimely
death. While we mourn for him as for a father on
whose strength we have leaned, and to whose counsels we have listened, we rejoice in the fruition of his




labors, we glory in the fullness of his fame, and we
are proud that the country which produced such a
man is our country.
We are here, under the auspices of the municipal
government of a city, consecrated by so many recollections of our heroic age, that it has become to the
American people the Mecca of their patriotic worship.
The Continental Congress, the Declaration, Independence Hall, the Old Bell, the Convention, the Constitution, Morris, Reed, Franklin, Washington, all stand
around us, and in their august presence, with their
memory and their spirit brooding over us, we are to
contemplate the life and services of a statesman who
has done much to perpetuate the liberty which was
here proclaimed, to preserve the Union which was
here established, and to give dignity at home and
influence abroad to the government which was here
formed.
Few men were ever welcomed to this city with
more sincere respect, or more generous admiration
than Daniel Webster. When he stood among us in
clear light, "Os, humerosque Deo similis," you all
know how warmly he was greeted. And when his
voice, sonorous and flexible, was heard from platform,
balcony, or banquet hall, in language to which his
deep, dark eyes, whose glance could fascinate or
wither, gave prophetic force, you well remember how,




with suppressed breath and eager ears, we hung upon
his lips; and how, at the close of some sentence big
with thought, we sat spell-bound, and forgot to
applaud. And now, when that eloquent voice is
hushed forever; and those eyes,
"Which have been piercing as the mid-day sun
To search the secret treasons of the world,
Are dimmed with death's black veil;"
and that Atlas form, weary with the weiTght of public
cares, lies mouldering to dust; and that mind, which
seemed too vast even for the vast dome it dwelt in, has
returned to God who gave it; there is no part of our
country, except his adopted Boston, where his memory
is more cherished, or his death more lamented, than
in Philadelphia.
History informs us, that among some of the nations
of antiquity, it was the custom, when a great man
died, to hold an inquest upon his character; and if the
verdict were favorable, his remains were embalmed
with much care and cost, and a solelnn eulogy was
pronounced at his funeral.
We are not here to-day to hold the inquest, but to
unite our voices with the hundreds that have already
pronounced the eulogium. The verdict of the contemporaries of Daniel Webster has been agreed upon,
and submitted to the court. The members of the pro



fession of which he was the acknowledged head, have
pronounced it. The statesmen of our country, among
whom he moved primus inter pares, have pronounced
it.  His political opponents, with a magnanimity
which softens the hard thoughts and hard words of
party strife, have pronounced it. Scholars and students of history, who have compared Webster with
the masters of ancient and modern eloquence, with
Demosthenes and Cicero, with Pitt, Fox and Burke,
have pronounced it. The pulpit, unseduced by the
brilliant and specious, and looking sternly beneath the
exterior of public and private character at motives
and principles, has pronounced it. And the united
voice of the nation, striving to give utterance to the
sentiments of its great heart, all alive with fresh recollections of its benefactor's arduous and unrequited
labors, has pronounced it. Daniel Webster was a great
lawyer, a great orator, a great statesman, a great man.
What a verdict! from what a jury!
This verdict has been so nearly unanimous, that it
will go up with authority to the tribunal of historythat high court of appeal which is to review the
record, and by which we doubt not that the judgment
of the present age will be affirmed.
What then remains for the present speaker to do?
While reading the addresses which have been already
delivered on Mr. Webster, in number beyond all for



mer example, in ability unsurpassed by any compositions of their class in our language, I have shrunk
from the honorable duty which the Select and Common Councils have assigned me, so painful has been
my consciousness of inability to do justice to the great
theme. I can add nothing to the reputation of our
departed statesman, for that is more than local, more
than national, it is world-wide. I can draw forth
from forgotten records no new facts to show by what
culture, in life's spring-time, plants of such pith and
stature grow; for all these have been explored, and
their story is as familiar to you as household words.
I can place no stone upon the monument which the
master builder has raised for himself; for as the hands
of our Zerubbabel "laid the foundation thereof, so
have his hands finished it, and have brought forth the
headstone, shouting, grace, grace unto it." I can add
no syllable to the inscription which his own chisel has
sculptured so deeply on that monument, nor grave a
single emblem in the blazons of its heraldry. I need
not paint again the picture of those home hours, all
sunshine, all poetry, when the warrior returned from
battle, and put off his harness, and wiped the sweat
from his brow, and shook the dust from his garments;
when the sportsman sallied forth with gun or line;
when the farmer rambled over his broad meadows, and
the lowing of his great oxen soothed his chafed spirit;




13
or when he sat under the elm at evening, and listened
to the murmur of the sea, and gazed upward at the
stars, and mused on thoughts deeper than the sea, and
higher than the stars. They who shared the intimacy
of his hearthstone have delineated all these, and have
made us know Mr. Webster better, and love him
more than before. Still less need I recapitulate his
public labors and intellectual achievements; for he was
a city set on a hill, and could not be hid.
"Ye saw his deeds.
Why should their praise in verse be sung?
The name that dwells on every tongue
No minstrel needs."
What then, the question returns with emphasis, are
we to do? We may at least pour out our libation
upon the tomb of our country's benefactor. We may
add one note to the grand requiem, which all over
this land, has bewailed a national bereavement.  We
may mingle our tears once more with those of our
stricken countrymen, whose full hearts have attested
the sincerity of the nation's grief. We may pass by
in solemn procession, and drop one sprig of green
upon the coffin of the great master, and place one
flower, though quickly it may fade, in the chaplet of
his unfading memory.
It has been said that great men are God's gift.




They are more than this; they are God's agents, sent
to the nations for specific objects, and trained up
under such discipline as prepares them to accomplish
these objects. When we look at the adaptation of
means to ends, which is so clearly discernible in every
department of nature, and which points ever and from
all directions to one great centre-to a presiding and
providing Intelligence, we cannot believe that the
movements of human society have been left to the
guidance of chance. The same God who reigns in
nature, reigns also in history.?it cannot be that the
Being who has given to the lower orders of animals
just such organs and instincts as their condition
requires, and who has guided the planets in their
courses ever since "the morning stars sang together,"
would permit the highest order of his earthly creatures to grope blindly on without aim or purpose.
We spurn the philosophy that would make humanity
the football of accident. We claim for reasoning
man at least as high a place in the Divine regard as unreasoning brutes occupy; and, claiming
this, we must believe that historical nations have
their work to perform in the world, and are educated for their work; and that historical men, who
alone make nations historical, have also their parts
assigned them in the grand drama, and are trained for
their parts. In the Divine Mind the work is antece



dent to the workman, and in due time the workman
appears because he is wanted.
The work which was maturing for Mr. Webster,
while he was growing up the man for the work, was
one of the natural and necessary results of our political development. At the time of his birth, American independence, though not yet formally acknowledged, had been really achieved. But there was
another and more difficult task for the patriots of those
days. The liberty which had been won by a lover,
was to be wedded to a husband. A thing which men
worship, fight for, and die for, in its abstract form, was
to become a living and prolific force, by being connected with institutions, as the soul is connected with
the body. And France, so many times set free, to be
as often again enslaved, may tell how much more difficult is the latter than the former.
The Constitution was adopted by the people under
the pressure of necessity, and with many misgivings.
It was foreseen that delicate questions involving state
rights and federal powers must arise under it, and that
the complicated machine would not run without friction. What was to be done when state interest, pride
or jealousy, roused by an example of real or fancied
oppression on the part of the general government,
should again apply the maxims of the revolution, and
say,'l Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God;"




"Give me liberty, or give me death?"  What was
to be done when a State, having the command of
money and physical force, should raise the standard
of secession, and say, " Liberty first, and Union afterwards?" These questions are vital. On their solution, whenever they should arise, was to depend the
continued existence of the republic.
What manner of man was required to meet such a
crisis, and to avert disunion anrd national suicide?
1. A great lawyer was required; a lawyer who could
reason from principles, rather than cases; who could
ascend to the fountain of right and justice, to "that
law whose seat is the bosom of God, and whose voice
is the harmony of the world;" who could pursue the
streams which flow from that fountain, as they permeate every department of society, and regulate the
intercourse and define the responsibilities both of individuals and nations. He must also be a constitutional lawyer; because the true exposition of the theory of our government was to be made, and the limits
of national and state sovereignty were to be carefully
defined.
2. A great statesman was required; —a man of settled convictions, not of shifting and temporary expedients; a man who could oppose his party if his party
were wrong, and go hand in hand with political opponents when they were right; a man who could compre



hend the true ends of government, and discover the
best means of attaining them. A statesman was required whose point of observation should be sufficiently
elevated to bring the entire horizon under his eye;
above local and sectional prejudices, "knowing no
North, no South, no East, no West"; with a mind
capacious enough to embrace the whole country.
3. A great orator was required; for among a
people, led as we are by the authority of our great
public men, he alone who had the national ear, and
could meet an opponent in debate, could effectually
put down a popular heresy. He alone who held the
key to men's patriotic sympathies, could so marshal
the recollections of the past, the interests of the present, and the hopes of the future, as to persuade them.
While the love of personal freedom, that master passion of our people, was not to be weakened, patriotism
was to be strengthened. The maxims of the revolution were not to become obsolete, but another set of
maxims was to be elevated to an equal seat at their
side. —" Independence AND  Patriotism,"-" Liberty
AND Union, now and forever, one and inseparable."
Only a great orator could do this.
4. A great man was required. A man of large
head and large heart, pursuing noble ends by noble
means, whom neither hope nor fear, praise nor censure,
friendship nor hatred might seduce from duty and
2




steadfast right; for only such a man could hold,or would
deserve to hold the confidence of the people. A man
was wanted to whose skill the nation might trust the
most delicate and momentous questions, and think
that nothing was too hard for him to solve; and even
while the winds were high, and the waves were breaking over the deck, and the rocks were under the lee,
could rest secure, and believe
" Nil desperandum, Teucro duce, et auspice Teucro."
This sketch, rude and imperfect though it be, is not
an untruthful outline of Daniel Webster. Where are
we to look for him, and how is he to be trained for
his vocation?
Such men do not spring forth full grown and armed
from the brain of Olympian Jove. They grow slowly
by nurture and culture. Accident does not produce
them; occasions do not; nor are occasions made for
them, but they for occasions. It is an error, now
less current than formerly, that fit men are always at
hand for every emergency. An emergency may bring
out what there is in a man, but will not put anything
in him. If men adequate to every crisis are always
at hand, why were not the uprisings of the oppressed
inhabitants of Europe, in 1848, conducted with moderation and wisdom to the desired issue of liberty?
If the want of great men will make them spring up




from the ground, like the fabled crop of soldiers from
dragon's teeth, why is their loss regarded as a national
calamity?  And why is the divine threatening so
terrible when the Prophet declares that "The Lord
doth take away the stay and the staff, the mighty
man, the judge, and the prophet, and the prudent, and
the ancient, and the honorable man, and the counsellor,
and the eloquent orator?"
The ancients deified fortune, and made her a positive force in human affairs. But now we know that
the fortunate man is he who knows himself, and
knowing himself, has the sagacity to discover his
vocation, and the strength to pursue it wisely and
well. The man who was growing up to meet the
crisis about to arise in our history, owed very little to
fortune. I-le was born in a small town in New Hampshire, on what was then the extreme northern boundary of civilization. His limbs were inured to toil at
an early age, and he was fed with such food as hard
labor could extort from a granite soil,-fit nutriment
of granite men. His father was of the heroic stock
of the Revolution, a man of stalwart frame and robust
mind. His mother was of gentler mould, but a woman
of sterling sense, discriminating and energetic. She
was the first to discover the brave promise of her son,
and to predict his future eminence.  If all similar




predictions were as fully justified by the results, there
would be no dearth of great.nen.
Both parents of Daniel Webster were religious, and
they trained up their children in the rigid discipline
of the Puritans. As the boy did not remember the time
when he was not able to read the Bible, so the man
could not point to a moment of his life when he did
not reverence it.
For two or three months in a year he went to such
a school as the backwoods of New Hampshire could
boast of sixty years since; —a peripatetic school, with
no Stagyrite at its head. The few books which fell
in his way he read and remembered; and the result
proved how much knowledge can be acquired under
the most unfavorable auspices, by a mind which
attracts it from every object, and absorbs it at every
pore. Master Chase soon surrendered the embryo
statesman to Master Tappan; and Master Tappan to
Preceptor Abbott; the last a fit Aristotle for such an
Alexander. At that time many of the youth of Boston
were sent up to Exeter to prepare for Cambridge, and
it is said that the coarse apparel and unpolished manners of the country lad moved the sneers of his high
bred school-mates from the metropolis. But though
somewhat abashed at first, he soon outstripped them
all in the race of knowledge, and when at the end of
his second quarter he was promoted to a higher grade,




his classmates were summoned to bid him adieu, "for,"
said the teacher, "you will never see him  again."
After leaving Exeter he studied awhile with the Rev.
Samuel Woods, and at the age of fifteen was admitted
into Dartmouth College, that foster mother of great
men.
A tradition used to be current in the New England
colleges, that Daniel Webster was what is called
among students a genius; that is, a lad who reads
every thing but his text-books, and who knows every
thing except his lessons. I remember, too, that every
idle student loved to cite Webster to prove how great
a man such a lad may become.  Reasoning from
example is not always safe, especially when the example happens to be imaginary. I have taken some
pains to come at the truth of this matter, and have
learned from authentic sources* some facts which I
fear will not be very consoling to that class of students
who expect to become eminent because they do not
study. The facts are these. Daniel Webster studied
more, read more, and wrote more than any member
of his class.  He was constant at his recitations and
always well prepared.  He was so careful an observer
* The facts and references relating to the student life of Mr. Webster
were communicated to me by Professor Edwin D. Sanborn of Dartmouth
College, to whose courtesy I am greatly indebted.




22
of order, that the President of the College would have
been suspected of lawless conduct as soon as he.*
As a debater and writer he so far excelled all others
in his class, that no one was spoken of as second to
him.t WXhile his fellow students selected their pieces
for declamation, he wrote his.  Whenever there was
a difficult task to be performed the class laid it on
Webster.  So tenacious was his memory that he was
known to repeat twenty pages of poetry after reading
them carefully twice.t  He wrote many fugitive pieces,
both in prose and verse, which were published. During his Junior year he tested his powers in two kinds
of composition and speaking, in which aspirants to
rhetorical fame, so often make trial of their strength
of wing; —a Fourth of July Oration, and a Eulogy.
At the close of the same year he wrote a drama,
which, according to the custom of the time, when the
buskin and the gown associated together in classic
halls, was enacted on the stage at commencement.
Above all lie was a serious, earnest, truthful lad; distinguished in college for the same traits which afterward made him  eminent as a man.  When he came
to receive his degree, so far from stamping his diploma
- Rev. Elihu Smith, of Pomfret, Vt.
t Governor Henry Hubbard, of Charlestown, N. H.
+ Dr. Farrar, of Derry, N. 1I.




23
under foot, as the story runs, a man now living,* who
stood at his side, testifies that he received it with a
graceful bow.
The young Bachelor of Arts now goes forth into
the world. "to learn and to earn."  WVith habits of
economy which necessity has formed; with a self-reliance which successful efforts have nourished; with
a courage which no obstacles can daunt; with a perseverance which fears no labor; and with a strength of
will which is innate and indomitable, he goes forth
"to find, or to mnake a way."
We next find Daniel WVebster Principal of the Fryeburg Academy, in the then District of Maine. His
salary is $350 a year, and as much more as he can
add to it by copying deeds at night in the Register's
office at twenty-five cents each.  With these earnings
he is to support himself, and pay the college expenses
of his brother Ezekiel.  When his fingers ache with
copying, he reads Blackstone till his eyes ache.  He
is usually grave and thoughtful, though sometimes
playful and facetious.  His religious training has not
been lost, and he opens and closes his school with
prayer.  All his amusements are manly and invigorating, and taken in the open air.  The companions
of his rambles are a fishing rod and Shalkspeare.  He
* Rev. Elihu Smith.




24
is the same man, in all essential qualities, that he will
be when nations listen to his words. He is esteemed
and beloved as a teacher; and at the end of eight
months he leaves Fryeburg, with good testimonials of
his skill, and with what he had not always in his later
and more prosperous life, some money in his pocket.
Mr. MWebster's lawyer life begins in the office of
Mr. Thompson of Salisbury, where Coke is placed in
his hands "to break him in," or to break him down.
But Webster would not be broken down; he chose
rather to break through the usual routine of office
study, and to read law books which he could understand.
We next meet him in Boston, in the office of Christopher Gore, who is his teacher, friend and adviser.
Mr. Gore discovers that his student is fit for something more than to record the doings of others, and
saves him from becoming "once a clerk always a
clerk." Many a man may look back upon some such
turning point of his life as this, when his destiny hung
upon the decision of an hour; and many a man,
pressed by the res angusta domi, has sacrificed a
brilliant fuiture to a present necessity.  If Daniel
Webster had accepted the clerkship which his father
urged upon him for the sake of the competency it
offered, he would probably have lived a respectable
man, influential in his neighborhood, perhaps the great




man of a little village; but it is doubtful ktihether his
honest neighbors would have ever suspected that the
man was greater than his office.
At the age of twenty-three Mr. Webster is admitted
to the Suffolk bar. Partly from the difficulties which
a young lawyer without influential ccnnexions must
encounter in commencing practice in a large city, and
partly from a desire to be near his father in his declining age, he returns to New Hampshire and opens
an office at Boscawen.  Having buried the father
wholn he went thither to assist and cherish, he removes
to Portsmouth and at once enters into successful competition with the best lawyers in the State. In five
years he has become known and has made himself
respected. He has studied hard, and worked hard,
for he has had to measure strength with Titans.
But New Hampshire was becoming too small for
him, or rather he was growing too big for New Hampshire. He has to be transplanted to a soil where his
roots may strike deeper, and his branches spread out
their leaves to a more genial air, and a brighter sunshine. New Hampshire is a fertile grower of great
men; and after exporting a large surplus, she can still
afford to give a President to the Union. As the rivers
from her granite hills flow down to fertilize Maine,
Massachusetts, and Connecticut; so her streams of




intellect pour forth with full tide, and spread from the
lakes to the gulf, and firom ocean to ocean.
It was essential to the development of Mr. Webster
as a statesman, that lie should establish himself where
the party of conservatism was predominant. Massachusetts had this attraction for him, and Boston was
ready to receive him with a cordial welcome. In the
mean time the ties which bound him to his native
State are sundered by the burning of his house,
furniture and library. He removes to Boston, where
he soon obtains a lucrative practice, and enters upon
that branch of his profession which is to open to him
his vocation as an expounder and defender of the
Constitution. He is retained on the defence of Dartmouth College; and sixteen years after he received
his diploma, he appears as the champion of his Alma
AMater in the Supreme Court of the United States.
Every lawyer in America is acquainted with this case,
and as the rights of all our colleges and other charitable corporations were suspended upon its issue, the
trial was regarded with deep solicitude throughout the
country.
It was not enough for the counsel to explore the
well-springs of English law. The old principles of
jurisprudence relating to eleemosynary corporations,
were to l)e applied to a new system of government.
The invasion of corporate rights had been made by




27
the Government of a State; and the question involved
state rights, the authority of the Federal Judiciary,
and the powers of the General Government under the
Constitution.  Mr. Webster put forth all his strength,
and was triumphantly successful.  Tile old charter of
the College was sustained. The acts of the Legislature of New Hampshire were declared void, and the
institution was restored to its former footing and prosperity.
This case established Mr. Webster's reputation as
a constitutional lawyer, and thenceforward he'was
retained on almost every suit involving constitutional
prifnciples.
No one can read his arguments in these cases, particularly in the college case, and in Gibbons vs. Ogden,
and Ogden vs. Saunders, without perceiving that he is
pluming himself for those higher flights, in which a
broader stretch of wing will be required to sustain
him, in his defence of the Charter of the Union.
The small number of Mr. Webster's forensic efforts
which have been published, will carry with them to
posterity abundant proof that his contemporaries did
not over-rate his merits when they pronounced him
the best lawyer of his time. Iis speeches at the trial
of the murderers of White, and in defence of Judge
Prescott, are not only master-pieces of forensic skill,
but they contain passages of unsurpassed eloquence.




In the Girard College case he labored under the disadvantage of not having the law on his side, but his
argument is valuable as a defence of christian education, and as the testimony of a great mind in favor of
the benefits and blessings of our holy religion. Had
he known at the time, that the noble sentiments he
was pronouncing, were the very sentiments which
would animate the Trustees and Directors of the college, he would have been spared the utterance of those
gloomy forebodings, the greater part of which proved
imaginary within his own life-time.
The statesman life of Mr. Webster began with his
election to Congress as a representative from New
Hampshire in 1812, and terminated only at his death.
His first movements in public affairs leaned a little
towards sectionalism; but he threw no impediments
in the way of the government in its prosecution of the
war. However strong his attachments to local interests, patriotism prevented his indulging them at the
expense of the honor and safety of the country.
After six years of successful practice in Boston,
Mr. Webster received the honor of representing in
Congress the focus of New England learning and
talent. At the call of duty he sacrificed his private
interests, and abandoned the prospect of wealth which
was opening before him. Henceforth he belongs to
his country, and to her service he surrenders himself




29
with entire devotion. During the session of 1824, he
made his speech on the Greek question, and asserted
substantially the same doctrines which, a quarter of a
century later, he enforced with so much point and
pungency in the Hulsemann letter. His words of
sympathy for struggling freedom bore encouragement
to the suffering Greeks, and are still remembered by
the friends of liberty throughout Europe.
To pursue, step by step, the career of Mr. Webster
as a legislator and administrative officer belongs to
the historian, and not to the eulogist. The limits of
this address would be hardly sufficient to give a catalogue of his labors, without any discussion of their
merits. When we consider the number and variety
of the subjects which engaged his attention, we are
amazed at the industry and breadth of mind which
could grasp them all. Whether he spoke of culrency,
banking, revenue, the judiciary, the criminal code,
foreign relations, internal improvements, protection
of American industry, the removal of the deposites,
the presidential protest, the sub-treasury, and above
all, of Nullification and the Force Bill, Secession and
the Compromises, he was never mastered by his subject, but was always his subject's master.  He never
failed to throw new light on the question under discussion, to seize its strong points, and to hold them
up clearly to the nation. Whatever the matter in




hand, he went right to the bottom of it, brought to view
great principles, and clothed them in bold and strong
language. They who dissented most earnestly from
many of his opinions, admitted the ability and honesty
of their advocate.
Mr. Webster first took his seat in the Senate in
1828, and in 1830 he commenced what I regard as
pre-eminently the work of his life,-the work for
which all that had preceded was but the preparatory
training. This was the exposition of the Constitution,
and the defence of the Union.
South Carolina was dissatisfied with the protective
tariff of 1828, and threatened to nullify the law.
Murmurs of discontent, audible during the first term
of Gen. Jackson's presidency, rose during his second
term to a degree of violence which threatened treason
and rebellion. The leaders of that movement were
desirous, as a preliminary measure, to destroy the
influence of New England and her statesmen. A
combination was formed for this purpose; the forces
were marshalled, and the parts assigned. Mr. Benton commenced the assault, and Mr. Hayne followed
with bitter denunciations of New England measures
and men. Mr. Webster replied to the latter. The
first speeches of both were but the skirmishing of
light troops before the charge of massive columns.
Neither party put forth his strength. But in Hayne's




second speech the tug of war commenced, and it was
obvious that Greek was to meet Greek. Mr. Webster was not disconcerted by the dashing boldness and
brilliancy of the charge. lie receives the shot, and is
prepared to return it. Next day he rises calm and
self-possessed to reply. There is no tremor of a
muscle, no blanching of the cheek, no quailing of the
eye, but a kindling rather, as when the war-horse
hears the trumpet calling to battle, and anticipates
the strife and the triumph. Nothing is visible in his
face or air, but the confidence of right, and conscious
power to maintain it. He surveys the crowded assemblage for a moment with that searching look, with
which he was wont to scrutinize an audience, so penetrating that every one present believed it was directed
to himself alone.! He speaks, slowly at first and with
some slight hesitation, but soon rises to the full height
of his theme. The keen irony with which he dissects
the speech of his opponent, the force with which he
exposes the injustice of the assaults upon New England, the running fire of raillery and eloquence with
which he makes good his personal defence, are only
equalled by the energy with which he pursues and
tortures his adversary and hurls back the shafts of
wit and sarcasm which few men could use with more
effect than he.




The fiery and impetuous assailant had met his
master. The granite man had triumphed.
In rhetorical merit I think that the second reply to
Hayne will compare favorably with the celebrated
oration of Demosthenes on the Crown. Indeed the
two speeches are not very unlike in their general drift.
The prosecution instituted by ~Eschines against Ctesiphon, wcs a blow aimed at Demosthenes; so the
assault of Hayne upon New England, was intended
to prostrate Webster. In defending his client Demosthenes was obliged to enter into an exposition and
defence of his own public life. Webster did the same
thing. Demosthenes proved that the measures which
/Eschines had charged as ruinous to the commonwealth, had been proposed and advocated by JEschines
and his friends. Webster proved that the injustice
to the West which New England was charged with,
would have been actually perpetrated by Southern
votes, if New England votes had not prevented.
There are passages in both speeches which are not
only equal in beauty and grandeur, but similar in conception.  And finally, Demosthenes closes A-ith a
prayer to the gods to dispose the enemies of his country to better purposes than planning her destruction,
to deliver her from impending evils, and to restore the
blessings of tranquillity and safety. So Webster, in
a prayer more eloquent and sublime, which almost




33
every American knows by heart, implores the Divine
protection upon our Union, and deprecates dissension
and civil strife. The arguments of both orators are
equally clear and demonstrative, and the results of
their efforts equally triumphant. But I submit that
Webster has the advantage of the old master of eloquence in maintaining the dignity of a gentleman and
the courtesy of debate. He is also more felicitous in
turning the weapons of his adversary against himself.
Demosthenes indulges too freely in personal abuse,
and his vehement denunciation and coarse invective
bruise like a maul, while the irony of Webster, and
his good natured but provokingr raillery cut like a
razor.
Three years after this debate the crisis of Nullification came. South Carolina had reduced her peculiar
principles to their last result; but there was to be a war
of giants in the Senate before the conflict of physical
force should commence in the field. General Jackson
had put forth his proclamation, expressing his determination to execute the laws by the military power of
the country, and Governor Hayne had issued a counter proclamation answering menace with defiance.
Mr. Wilkins had introduced the Force Bill, and Mr.
Calhoun had offered a series of resolutions reaffirming
the South Carolina doctrines. It was in reply to the
speech of the latter, that Mr. Webster made what I
3




consider the most perfect constitutional argument ever
constructed; an argument which overthrows and demolishes every proposition of his opponent, and demonstrates, with a compact and irresistible phalanx
of reasoning, the true theory of our government.
This speech gave the death blow to nullification; for
though it lingered awhile, it was past all medical skill.
Seventeen years afterwards the South Carolina
doctrine made its appearance in a new form, which
offered the alternative of compromise or secession.
Mr. Webster was again in the Senate, and his course
on these questions was watched with deep solicitude.
Will he, so long a national man, now become sectional?
If he will consent to do this, he will gratify a large
party in New England; perhaps a majority in discreet
and conservative Massachusetts will applaud him.
But if he still adhere to a national course, he will be
assailed with the bitter taunts of foes, and meet the
averted faces of friends. Fanueil Hall will be bolted
against him. He will sharpen the ferocity of men
who will raven upon his reputation before his corpse
shall have become cold in its sepulchre. The choice
he makes is the test of his magnanimity. It is only
the highest order of men who do not hesitate to act
on their convictions at the cost of self-sacrifice.
Daniel Webster had counted the cost, and was ready
for the sacrifice. His speech of March 7th, 1850, is




35
dedicated to the people of Massachusetts, with a motto
which shows how clearly he foresaw the probable consequences of the step he was taking. " His ego gratiora
dictu alia esse scio; sed me vera pro gratis loqui, etsi
meum ingeniumn non moneret, necessitas cogit. Vellein, equidem, vobis placere; sed multo malo vos
salvos esse, qualicumque erga me animo futuri estis."
He holds fast his integrity. He speaks "not as a
Massachusetts man, nor as a northern man, but as
an American, and as a member of the United States
Senate." He believed that the welfare of many generations hung upon the right decision of the questions
at issue, and he spake for the preservation of the
Union. After that speech the country breathed more
freely, and light broke in through the gloom. The
victim was prepared for immolation, and -was soon
led to the altar. HIe had tasted the bitterness of office,
and was to pay the penalty of greatness. They who
imputed his action to unworthy motives, and pretended that there was really no danger of secession,
did not know that the trained eye of a mariner can
see farther than a landsman. They forgot that the
dweller upon a hill-top has a wider horizon than the
inhabitant of a valley. They who can see only a part,
never comprehend him who can see the whole. As
a man of one idea cannot take the measure of him




who has many, so the line of a sectional politician is
not long enough to fathom a national statesman.
When Mr. Webster held the post of Secretary of
State, under Harrison and Tyler, our foreign relations
were delicate and threatening. There were difficulties
growing out of the burning of the Caroline, and the
trial of McLeod. The Northeastern Boundary question, which had defied all attempts at settlement,
was to be solved by diplomacy, or cut with the
sword. There were controversies both old and new,
respecting maritime rights.  The limits of Oregon
were in dispute. There were difficulties with Spain,
with Mexico, and with the Indians.  There was
no quarter of the political horizon, where the clouds
did not look angry.  Mr. Webster was not the
man to desert his post at an hour like this. The
administration had lost the confidence of the party
which had raised it to power, and significant hints
were thrown out to the Secretary, that he was expected
to come away and be separate. These he silenced
with a look and a word. When the Mayor of Boston
suggested that he was competent to take care of his
own honor, he replied that "he was exactly of the
same opinion." He remained in the cabinet till the
Ashburton Treaty, the great service of his administrative career, was finished;-a work which averted
incalculable mischiefs, and entitled him to the lasting




gratitude of his countrymen.  The results of this
negotiation proved that
"Beneath the rule of men entirely great
The pen is mightier than the sword."
The State Papers which Mr. Webster left in the
archives of the government will compare favorably, in
dignity and ability, with those of his distinguished predecessors in the office of Secretary of State.  There
are indeed some expressions in the Hulsemann letter,
which, as a matter of taste, we may wish had been
expunged; and the provoking tone of the paper was
better suited to popular sentiment at the time, than to
the courtesy and reserve which usually marked the
writer's official style. But the letter sets forth true
American sentiments and principles with vigor and
boldness; and Europe, while she saw that the United
States were practising lessons in a style of diplomacy
in which they were hereafter to address her ancient
monarchies, prayed that we might not indulge in an
insolence commensurate with our power.  The hint
is worthy of consideration, for while
"It is excellent to have a giant's strength,
It is tyrannous to use it like a giant."
Either through failing health, or want of access to
the best sources of information, Mr. Webster made a




mistake on the question of the Lobos Islands, which
the government has frankly admitted, and honorably
rectified.
With these exceptions I believe there is nothing in
the diplomatic correspondence of the great Secretary,
of which an American may not say, as they go forth
to the world, or down to posterity, "I, nostra decus."
During his active professional and public life Mr.
Webster found time to prepare numerous addresses,
on subjects not directly connected with law or politics.
Among these there are five which may be regarded as
models of patriotic eloquence, and noble specimens of
literary art. You have all read the Address at Plymouth on Forefather's day, the Eulogy on Adams and
Jefferson, the Addresses at the laying of the Corner
Stone, and on the completion of the Bunker Hill
Monument, and the Oration last February before the
New York Historical Society. While all of these are
rich legacies to our national literature, it appears to
me, though I say it with some hesitation, that the first
is unsurpassed by any of its successors, and that the
last is surpassed by each of the preceding. Mr.
March observes, in his sprightly manner, that "every
one has read the Plymouth Address who knows how
to read and what to read."  We may add that it will
be read as long as Plymouth rock shall stand, and
the English language endure.




Mr. Webster was too constantly engaged in active
duties to become a profound scholar, either in general
science, or in foreign and ancient literature. His
favorite Latin authors were Cicero and Sallust. WVith
these his mind was thoroughly imbued, and formed to
think and speak "in the high Roman fashion." He
was well read in the English Classics, and his style
was disciplined to severe simplicity by intimate communion with the best of them. His knowledge of
history was extensive and accurate, but he studied it
rather as a practical statesman, for examples and
illustrations, than as a philosopher. His literary style
was characterized by perspicuity, dignity and energy.
As a writer he sometimes reminds us of Demosthenes,
and sometimes of Burke; but he had less vehemence
than the former, and less copiousness than the latter.
In directness of purpose, clearness of statement, and
irresistible sweep of argument, he was the equal of
Demosthenes; and while Burke used more rhetorical
ornament, and abounded more in historical and classical illustrations, Webster was his superior in simplicity and force.
Mr. Webster was fond of poetry, and loved to quote
it, both in his speeches and in conversation. It has
been already remarked that he paid his court to the
Muse of song in early life, and you remember that
some verses which he loved, lingered in his memory




40
when all else of earth was losing its interest, and
earth itself was receding from his view. Of imagination he had much; hardly less than Milton, though
he cultivated it less; and both drew their nutriment
of this faculty from the same sublime source-the
Bible. Of fancy, that playful power, which Shakspeare possessed in so eminent a degree, and which,
like the Aurora Borealis, takes all forms and hues,
with bewildering and fantastic inconstancy, he had
very little. He never "turned to shape the forms of
things unknown, nor gave to airy nothing a local
habitation and a name." His great strength lay in
the understanding, and holding imagination subordinate to that, he drew upon its rich wealth with a
sparing hand.
In his manner of speaking, Mr. Webster was generally calm and unimpassioned. To hearers who had
not the power of concentrated attention, and who
could not follow link by link the chain of his argument,
he sometimes appeared dull. But when roused by a
great occasion, or by an adversary worthy of his
power, he rose to his full height, and surpassed expectation. The narrative part of his discourses was
always lucid and discriminating. It has  eeon said,
that in making a statement of facts he never had a
superior; and it is equally true that findingr the dividilln line between too little and too much in mahiln-g.




narrative, between the circumstances that will leave
the most distinct impression upon an audience, and
those that will crowd and confuse the picture, is one
of the last attainments of an orator.
His exposition of a subject was equal to his narration. His definitions were like newly struck coins,
with sharp outline and bright surface.  He never
mistook the object at which he ought to aim; nor
was it possible for the listener to mistake the object
at which he was aiming.
In refutation he rarely used personalities; but when
provoked to retort, his irony was as withering as the
red flashes of his eye. No man was ever more courteous in debate, but no man ever demolished the
arguments of an opponent with more ponderous and
effective blows.  Nothing but Cyclopean masonry
could resist his heavy guns.
As he approached his argument you might see him
delving far down beneath the surface till he came to
the solid rock on which his structure was to rest.
Then course after course, with massive blocks hewn
out from the deep quarries of law and reason, he built
up his work, every layer supported by all below it,
and sustaining all above it, and the whole bound to
gether with bars of iron logic, till the grand result
stood finished in the stern simplicity of a Doric temple.
His perorations were beautiful, grand, or sublime,




42
as the subject might warrant or require. They generally contained sentiments of lofty patriotism, and
these were often clothed in language that burned
ineffaceable marks into the memory of his hearers.
They have been for years the common themes of
student declamation, and as almost every educated
American youth has personified Webster on the
college stage, so almost every one carries with him
into life the patriotic sentiments which these noble
specimens of eloquence inspire.
It must be admitted that Mr. Webster did not
originate any of the leading political movements of
his time, but yet his mark is on them all; and he
probably did more than aqy of his contemporaries to
shape public opinion on these movements, to instruct
the national intellect, and to guide the national will.
The man who could do this must have been a great
statesman. Though he discovered no new principles
of government, and opened no new path for himself
or others to walk in, and was content with the maxims
of political wisdom which the founders of the Republic
had taught, yet he made new applications of the old
formulas; he cleared and straightened the old paths;
and he gave prominence and force to such of the old
maxims as would consecrate the marriage of liberty
with law. While, therefore, he was conservative, his
conservatism was compatible with progress. It was




a brake to check the engine when its velocity was too
great for safety; but not to stop it. It was not the
conservatism of a rock which cannot be moved; but
the conservatism that builds upon a rock a structure
which cannot be moved. It was the conservatism
which makes its piers firm and strong before it springs
an arch.
Mr. Webster's consistency was of a piece with his
conservatism. There is a thing called consistency,
which is only standing still. A ship at anchor may
ride secure, from whatever point of the compass the
wind may blow. But to make her port she must
weigh anchor, and trim her sails to the breeze., Never
to change an opinion is never to grow wiser. May
not a man consistently advocate a measure this year
which he opposed twenty years ago? When he
attains a higher level will he not have a wider view?
When the light increases must he shut his eyes to
prevent seeing objects that were invisible before?
Again, the circumstances of the country change, and
its wants change with them. A measure may be
beneficial to-day, which would have been mischievous
yesterday. The only statesmanlike consistency, is
consistency in adherence to the eternal principles of
justice and truth; —consistency in the ends pursued;
adaptability, which may sometimes approach mutability, in the means of attaining them.




44
Such I believe was the consistency of Mr. Webster.
He opposed a national bank in 1815 and 16, because
he believed that the proposed charter contained elements subversive of all safe banking, and destructive
to the credit and usefulness of the institution. But in
1832 he advocated the re-charter, under a modified
form, because the bank had, as he believed, demonstrated its utility as a fiscal agent of the government,
and a regulator of domestic exchanges. He opposed
the first Tariff for protection, because he believed that
it would injure New England, and benefit no one.
But in 1828, and ever after, he was the friend of
moderate protection, because a vast capital, before
employed in commerce, had been invested in manufactures, and the interests of industry required a stable
policy.  Is there inconsistency here?  For every
change of opinion has he not a warrant to show?
Many in this audience were b)etter acquainted with
Mr. Webster, personally, than I was. It therefore
becomes me to speak with diffidence of his manners
and personal qualities; but I will venture to describe
him as he appeared to me from my humble point of
observation. I need not tell you that his form and
mien were majestic and imperial. You would single
him out among assembled thousands as a man of
mark. If you had seen him for the first time in the
Senate, you would have painted to him as "the noblest




45
Roman of them  all."  His stout, massive frame,
modeled for dignity rather than grace, yet graceful
in its grand repose, seemed a fitting support for a
head of prodigious size. The surgeons tell us that
but two of earth's millions, within the memory of living
men, had more brain than he. His large dark eyes
were set deeply in his head, so deeply that their sockets
seemed cavernous, an appearance which was given
them by the remarkable prominence of his forehead. His whole exterior indicated a man in whom
intellect predominated over all other qualities; and
this I believe was the fact. To the friends whose
fidelity he had proved, his attachments were strong
and unwavering; but he was not easily approached by
men who could not show a good title to his confidence.
He was kind to those who treated him with deference,
and who sought his good offices. His servants, his
farm hands, his fishermen, his neighbors, and " that
true man, John Taylor," loved him with the devotion
of honest and faithful hearts, and he reciprocated the
feeling. He was loved by all who had the privilege
of seeing and knowing him, when his armor was off;
but he moved among men abroad mail clad and with
visor down. His affection for his own kith and kin
was intense; and their names are embalmed, with his,
in the works which he has dedicated to their memory.
The poor who sought him never went empty away.




His bounty was large, sometimes excessive, and often
indiscriminate. He was careful of dress and etiquette,
but careless of money. He was luxurious without
ostentation, proud without vanity, ambitious without
envy, generous without pretension.
In general intercourse with society there was a
striking contrast between Mr. Webster and his illustrious contemporary, Mr. Clay. Webster was usually
distant and reserved; Clay, always cordial and sympathizing. Webster conversed brilliantly, but he required to be drawn out. Clay would take the initiative;
and he always selected the subject with tact, and a
true discernment of the tastes and intelligence of his
companions.'In fashionable society at Washington,
Webster stood in proud repose, with icy brow, like
Mont Blanc among lesser Alps, its summit covered
with perpetual snow. He was among them, but not
of them.) Clay, on the contrary, had the facility to
adapt himself to every situation. He could shine as
brilliantly in the saloon as in the Senate. Webster
would enter the party of a Secretary or Minister,
move slowly to one side of the room, and sit down
silent and abstracted. After a while a few friends
would gather around him, and the conversation, at
first sluggish and cold, would gradually become instructive, sometimes warm into eloquence, but seldom
grow light and lively. Clay would address himself




47
to the ladies, engage in their conversation or amusement, and vie with the lightest of them in gaiety;
with the liveliest, in vivacity; and with the brightest,
in wit. Thus Clay was always the most popular man
in Washington society; a distinction which Webster
never attained and never sought.
Similar differences between the two were observable in their public and official intercourse with men.
Webster made firm friends of the few, but held the
many at a distance. He was courteous to all, but
cordial only to those who had the key to his heart,
and knew how to turn it. Clay made friends of all
who approached him. Many who voted against him
as a politician, loved him as a man, Webster inspired respect, but he was inscrutable. When you
grasped the warm hand of Clay, you could look
through the windows of his eyes right down into his
heart and see it beat. Webster awed men; Clay
attracted them. They admired Webster; they loved
Clay.
In their treatment of great questions, the difference between Clay and Webster was as striking as
in their manners. It reminds us of the contrast drawn
by a writer some years since, in a style somewhat
exaggerated, between Canning and Brougham. Clay
swept lightly over the surface, seized the obvious
points, and adorned his subject with all the graces of




48
wit and rhetoric. Webster toiled in deep mines,
grasped the strongest points, and addressed himself to
the understanding rather than the sympathies of his
hearers. Clay was the more persuasive; Webster
the more convincing. Clay constructed his edifice of
the materials which lay nearest at hand, and it rose
up light, airy and graceful. Webster brought up
from below the everlasting granite, and made his
structure as solid as a pyramid. In personal controversy Clay used a rapier; Webster, a broadsword.
But both were adepts in the use of their peculiar
weapons, and fortunate was the man who escaped
alive from an encounter with either.
With regard to the moral and religious character
of Mr. Webster, great difference of opinion existed
before his death, and unusual interest has been manifested since. When a man has ceased to be feared,
and stands no longer in the way of competitors, the
lips of envy are apt to be closed, and the tongue of
malice hushed. That Mr. Webster had faults, all
admit; and that calumny exaggerated them, all now
believe. "Let him who is without sin throw the first
stone."  The man who is loved by his family may be
a bad man; but the man whom his friends and
neighbors love more as they know him better, cannot.
Mr. Webster's religious veneration was large. It
was nurtured in his youth, and grew stronger in his




age. He was a lover of the Bible, and his great mind
yielded fuill assent to its truth. How far his great
heart was imbued with its precepts, and governed by
them, while he was pursuing the hot and dusty path of
ambition, I know not. How far he may have gone
astray from the fold, in which he had taken shelter in
early manhood, I know not. I prefer to know, and
so far as human testimony may be relied on in such
cases, we all do know, that he returned to that fold.
They who were most competent to judge, and had the
best means of judging, assure us that toward the close
of his life, he made religion a practical and personal
matter. When ill health compelled him to withdraw
from the cares of office to his retreat at Marshfield,
he gave his thoughts earnestly to preparation for the
change which he knew could not be far distant.
The greatness of Mr. Webster's life was only surpassed by the grandeur of his death. They who
stood around his bed during those days and hours,
when the pall of a mighty sorrow was about to
descend upon the land; and who caught every word of
the dying statesman, and treasured it among their
most precious memories, have lifted the curtain from
that scene, and permitted us to look upon its solemn
beauty. Grateful for the favor, it is ours to gaze and
be silent. There are scenes which are marred by description; there are thoughts whose utterance would be
4




50
sacrilege; there are feelings whose only appropriate
expression is silence: and these are such.  But
while we gaze and listen, we may lift our hearts in
gratitude to Heaven, that in this sublime death, we
have another example of the power of the religion of
Jesus, to subdue the greatest of minds, and to cheer
with immortal hopes the weary denizen of earth.
The last words of Mr. Webster, though he uttered
themn as the simple expression of a fact, have more
than a literal significance  His friend, Mr. George
Ticknor, who has given the best account I have seen
of the glorious sunset of his life, relates, among others,
the following particulars. "He had intervals of rest
to the last; but on rousing from them, he showed that
lie was still intensely anxious to preserve his consciousness, and to watch for the moment and act of
his departure, so as to comprehend it. Awaking
from one of these slumbers, late in the night, he aslked
distinctly if he were alive, and on being assured that
he was, and that his family were collected around his
bed, he said, in a perfectly natural tone, as if assenting to what had been told him, because he himself
perceived that it was true,'I still live.' These were
his last coherent and intelligible words."
And though all that was mortal of Daniel Webster
did on that night cease to live, he still lives. He lives
in the hearts of his countrymen; he lives in the mem



ory of great and patriotic services; he lives in many
a recorded word of instruction to us and to our children; and in many a burning appeal in behalf of our
National Union. He has left behind him lessons of
wisdom and warning as a legacy to us, imperishable
as his own memory; and though he stands no longer
at the helm, he has given us a chart for our voyage,
and commending us to the guidance of an unerring
Pilot, he has'bidden our flag-ship of humanity sail
safely on toward the haven of its hope. And if we
had been permitted to follow his emancipated spirit,
as it ascended to its Eternal Source, and became conscious of the Divine Love, the pledge of its own
immortality, we might have heard him repeat the last
words he spake on earth, as his first in heaven,-" I
STILL LIVE."