'¥* ^

MR. WHIPPLE'S

DISCO IRS K,

THE LIFE AND SERVICES

OP ' - X.,.'--

DANIEL WEBSTER.

- f

3
A

DISCOURSE

COMMEMORATION OF THE LIFE AND SERVICES

DANIEL WEBSTER,

delivered before the CITIZENS OF PROVIDENCE,

November 23, 18.52.

BY JOHN WHIPPLE, LL. D.
1 1 1

PROVIDENCE:
KNOWLES, ANTHONT & CO., PEINTEKS.
1852.

PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS.

Pursuant to notice previously published, a numerous and liighly respectable
meeting bf the citizens of Providence was held at Mechanics HaU, on Thursday
November 4th. Hon. John Pitman of the United States District Court
was called to the Chair, and Amos D. Smith, Esq. was appointed Secre
tary. After some brief and impressive remarks by the Chairman, the follow
ing Resolutions were offered by the Rev. Dr. CASWELL,upon which the meet>
ing was addressed by Hon. Albekt C. Gkeene, Thomas F. Caepentee,
Esq. Rev. Dr. Hall, President Wayland, and Hon. A. C. Baestow,
Mayor of the city.
Resolved, That the death of Daniel Webster, which occurred on the morn
ing ofthe 24th of October last, at his residence in Marshfield, Mass., is an event
which awakens the unaffected sorrow and merits the gravest consideration of
the American people.
Resolved, That while we bow with submission to the dispensation of Divine
Providence, which removed him from this life in the full possession ofhis great
powers and while discharging with honor to his country many of the most im
portant administrative duties of the government, it becomes us to cherish his
memory as a part of our truest national glory and to do what we can to trans
mit to those who come after us, our high appreciation of his long and varied
and preeminent public services.
Resolved, That as a scholar and writer, thoroughly master of the English
tongue, and inculcating in the immortal productions of his pen, sentiments of
the loftiest patriotism, the purest Christian morality and the reverence of all
things sacred ; as an orator endowed with the rarest powers of forensic and
parliamentary eloquence, always directed to worthy ends; as a jurist and
statesman of far-reaching and consummate ability ; and more than all, as the
great expounder and defender of the Constitution of these United States, by
which our dearest rights and privileges are made secure, and social harmony
established throughout our wide domain, he justly claims of every American
citizen the most profound respect and admiration.
Resolved, That a Committee of eight be appointed by this meeting to make
arrangements for the early delivery of a public discourse commemorative of
the Hfe and services of Daniel Webster.

JOHN WHIPPLE, Esq.
Deae Sir : — The undersigned embrace the earliest opportunity to
present to you their sinoere thanks for the eloquent and very appropriate
discourse pronounced by you this day, in commemoration of the character
and services of Daniel Webster.
Believing that it will be read with interest, and that its circulation will con
duce to the pubhc good, they respectfully request on behalf of their^feUow
citizens as well as themselves, a copy for pubhcation.
ALEXIS CASWELL;
JOHN PITMAN,
AMOS D. SMITH,
ALBERT C. GREENE,
THO'S. F. CARPENTER,
MOSES B. IVES,
WILLIAM W. HOPPIN,
G. W. HALLET.
Providence, Nov. 23, 1852.

Co-mmittee of
Arrangements.

Providence, November 23, 1852.
Gentlemen : — I return you my sincere thanks for the flattering estimate
you have expressed of the discourse I had the honor of delivering to-day in
commemoration ofthe character and services of Daniel Webster, and iu
accordance with your wishes, I submit it to your disposal.
Most respectlully, yours, JOHN WHIPPLE.
Messrs.

Alexis Caswell,
John Pitman,
Amos D. Smith,
A. C. Greene,
Tho's. F. Carpenter,
Moses B. Ives,
Wm. W. Hoppin,
G. W. Hallet.

Committee of
Arrangementsi

DISCOURSE.

My Friends and Fellow Citizens :
It is good for us that we are here. It is of good and
for good, that we come up to this temple of religious
worship to mingle our spirit with the spirit of him,
whose loss we so deeply deplore ; of him whose whole
life exhibited in an eminent degree the two grand prin
ciples of human action, which above all other principles
elevate and ennoble our nature ; the worship of the God
whom he adored, and the service of the country he
loved. These were as prominent elements of his lifti
as earth and air and ocean, are prominent elements of
the globe we inhabit.
Reason and a deep consciousness of future responsi
bility were not bestowed upon us without an object. It
is true that for some wise purpose beyond our power to
comprehend, God has bestowed upon man every degree
of physical power ; from the broad and compact frame of
the giant, down almost to the helpless weakness of the
infant ; every measure of intellectual light and strength,
from the elfulgent mind of Bacon, down to the almost
total darkness of the idiot. But he has bestowed upon
all a deep and abiding sense of responsibility somewhere
and somehow, which we can no more escape from than
from the shadows of our bodies in the sunlight of hea
ven. There they cast themselves upon the earth we

6
inhabit, and follow us as conscience follows our spirit,
until the darkness of the tomb envelopes us. The body
will decay and its shadow be no more. But the spirit
is not of earth, and earth cannot destroy it. Hence the
universal consciousness among all nations, ancient and
modern, of a state of future responsibility.
Mr. Webster died as he had lived, calm, dignified and
self-possessed. Like the Eoman senator he folded his
robes around him and met the king of terrors with the
dignity of a man, and the humility of a Christian.
The most prominent events in the life of this great
man are already before the public. Reminiscences from
the pen of Mr. March, and at a later period his biogra
phy by Mr. Edward Everett, have doue full and ample
justice to their subject. His speeches and other great
efibrts in the cause of human freedom and the advance
ment of human civilization, are also published. All Avho
feel an interest in the characters and services of the great
statesmen of modern days, have probably read his works,
and are familiar with the prominent features of his char
acter. In the short period usually allo-wed to occasions
like the present, it will be impossible for me to present to
you the whole of Daniel Webster. I can only furnish
specimens here and there of his great mind and his great
deeds. One or two outpourings from ^Etna or Vesu
vius will give some idea of the fires within their capa
cious bosoms.
Mr. Webster, it seems was born on the 18th of Janu
ary, 1782, three months after young Hamilton and his
three intrepid followers were the first to scale the walls
of Yorktown. He first saw the light of heaven refiected
from the snow drifts of a cold and mountain country.
He was born on the very outside of civilization, on the

borders of a forest nearly two hundred miles in extent,
inhabited by ferocious savages. He was the second son
of Ebenezer Webster and Abigail Eastman, a second
wife. " Ebenezer, the father," says the biographer, " is
still recollected in Kingston and Salisbury. His per
sonal appearance was striking. He was erect, of athletic
stature, six feet high, broad and full in the chest. Long
service in the war had given him a military air and car
riage. He belonged to the intrepid border race which
lined the whole frontier of the Anglo-American colonies,
by turns farmers, huntsmen, and soldiers, and passing
their lives in one long struggle with the hardships of an
infant settlement, on the skirts of a primeval forest."
" Ebenezer Webster enlisted early in life as a common
soldier in one of those formidable companies of Rangers
which rendered such important services under Sir Jeffrey
Amherst and Wolfe, in the Seven Years War. He fol
lowed the former distinguished leader in the invasion of
Canada, attracted the attention and gained the good will
of his superior oificers, by his brave and faithful conduct,
and rose to the rank of a captain before the end of the
war." After the peace of 1763, Captain Webster and other
retired officers and soldiers obtained a grant from the
principal grantee of the town of Salisbury. Captain
Webster received his allotment in its northerly portion.
He cut his way deeper into the wilderness than others,
and made the path he could not find. At this time his
nearest civilized neighbors on the northwest, were at
Montreal. It is further stated in the touching biographical sketch
that the mother of Daniel Webster, " like the mothers
of so many men of eminence, was a woman of more than

8
ordinary intellect, and possessed a force of character
which was felt throughout the humble circle in which
she moved. She was proud of her sons and ambitious
that they should excel. Her anticipations went beyond
the narrow sphere in which their lot seemed to be cast,
and the distinction attained by both, and especially by
the younger, may well be traced in part to her early
promptings and judicious guidance."
" In the war of our Revolution it seems that like so
many of the officers and soldiers of the former war, his
father obeyed the first call to arms in the new struggle.
He commanded a company chiefly composed of his own
townspeople, friends and kindred, who followed him dur
ing the greater portion of the war. He Avas at the bat
tle of White Plains, and was at West Point when the
treason of Arnold was discovered. He acted as Major
under Stark at Bennington, and contributed his share
to the success of that eventful day."
If I have ever been fervently impressed with the pow
er of God, if I have ever had a deep and overwhelming
religious feeling, or a heartfelt conviction of the mere
dust that we are, it has arisen from a survey of His su-
pendous works. Ever since He said, " let there be light,
and there was light" — ever since He spread out the vast
and, to our feeble minds, illimitable expanse of suns and
moons and planets, placed at distances and moving with
velocities which the strongest imaginations are unable
to form a conception of, has there existed in the human
mind a deep religious feeling. Somewhat akin to this
is that next great feehng, the love of country. It is
breathed into us, often in our infancy, by the scenery
around us, full of sublimity, and by the lofty minds we

daily commune with, all glowing with intense and burn
ing patriotism. The father of Daniel Webster was not
simply Ebenezer Webster, a farmer of New Hampshire,
but Ensign Webster, Captain Webster, and then Major
Webster, one of the heroes of two wars, fighting the
battles of his country, and in every battle, whether with
the savages of the forest, the Canadian French, or later,
against veteran British troops, always in the front rank
of his little band of Spartan heroes. His stature was
majestic, and his heart corresponded with his stature.
The grandeur of the scenery which encircled the infan
cy of young Webster, the lofty mountain chain beneath
the shade of which he passed his early days, its foaming
torrent streams, the Alpine snow-drifts, and the solemn
eloquence of the dense and uninhabited forest, were not
lost upon him. There existed another circumstance,
probably stronger than most men in these days of peace '
and security will at once allow. Most ofthe oificers and
soldiers of the Revolution were young men, from eigh
teen to twenty-five. When peace was established in
1 783, they returned to their homes, still in middle life.
Mr. Webster himself informs us that New Hampshire
enlisted more men than any other State in the Union,
and that there was not a battle fought, from Lexington
to Yorktown, in which New Hampshire blood was not
spilled. Of the three hundred and twenty thousand
troops enlisted during the revolutionary war, more than
one half were from New England. We all of us know
the loftiness, the devotedness, the intense love of country
which these patriotic soldiers evinced during their re
maining lives. War songs, recounting their deeds of
heroism, and recounting their sufferings, were almost
daily sung in every log cabin and farm house in New

10
Hampshire. It requires, therefore, but a little of the
license allowed the poet to say, that while young Webster
was rocked to sleep by a mother's band, he listened to
patriotic songs from a mother's lips. His infancy and
his youth were passed amid the same inspiring infiu
ences. Can we fail to see in this the seeds of an intense
national feeling early implanted and gradually spread
ing over his whole character? He became ambitious
to serve his country. But long years of peace ensued.
All prospect of military fame had terminated. He
therefore longed for an education that he might dis
tinguish himself in some other way. But his father had
a large family to support, and his heart forbade his mak
ing known his ardent desire for intellectual culture. At
a subsequent period, when returning home in a sleicrh,
his father communicated to him his intention of sending
him to college for an education. The heart of young
Webster was so full that he could not speak. "He leaned
his head upon his father's arm and wept." This is the
stuff that patriots are made of It tells its own story.
He was then fifteen years old. He prepared for col
lege, and entered Dartmouth in 1797. During the va
cations he taught a school in order to pav the expense
of his brother's education. But Mr. Ticknor informs
us, " that while in college he was already in the estima
tion of those who knew him, a marked man, and that
to the more sagacious of them the honors of his subse
quent career have not been unexpected."'
He graduated in 1801, and entered the office of Mr
Thompson, a neighbor ofhis father, as a student of law
Mr. March mforms us that he remained in the office "un-
td he felt It necessary to go somewhere and earn a little
money." He took charge of an academv at Frvebur-

11
in Maine, upon a salary of one dollar per day, and acted
as assistant to the Register of Deeds for the county. In
this way he saved a fund for his own professional educa
tion and to help his brother through college.
In 1 804 he entered the office of Christopher Gore in
Boston, where he pursued his legal and other studies
with diligence and ardor. In the spring of 1805 he was
admitted to the practice of the law in the Court of Com
mon Pleas for Suffolk county. Mr. Gore, in recommend
ing him, says Mr. Everett, " dwelt with emphasis on the re
markable attainments and uncommon promise of his pu
pil, and closed with a prediction ofhis future eminence."
Mr. Webster opened an otfice at Boscawen, near his
father's residence. His father, who had been appointed
Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, died within a year
after he commenced his practice.
In 1807, Mr. Webster was admitted as an attorney and
counsellor of the Supreme Court of New Hampshire,
and removed to Portsmouth, where he remained in the
practice of his profession for nine successive years. Dur
ing this period he was often associated with Samuel Dex
ter, Joseph Story, and Jeremiah Mason, and often op
posed to them.
In the month of November, 1812, he was elected a
Representative to the Corigress of the United States, and
took his seat at the first session of the thirteenth Con
gress, which was an extra session, called in May, 1813.
Henry Clay was then Speaker of the House. Calhoun,
Lowndes, Pickering, and Gaston were among its leading
members. In the organization ofthe House, Mr. Web
ster was placed by the Speaker upon the Committee of
Foreign Affairs, a select committee at that time, and ne
cessarily in time of war the most important one.

12
Early in the session he moved a series of resolutions
relative to the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees,
and on the 10th of June, 1813, he delivered his maiden
speech upon these resolutions.
Mr. Everett informs us that "it was marked by all the
characteristics of Mr. Webster's maturest parliamentary
efforts, moderation of tone, precision of statement, force
of reasoning, absence of ambitious rhetoric and high
flown language, occasional bursts of true eloquence, and,
pervading the whole, a genuine and fervid patriotism."
Mr. March gives a still more glowing account of this
first parliamentary effort.
Chief Justice Marshall, a cooler head, in writing to a
friend, remarks, " I did not then hesitate to state that Mr.
Webster was a very able man, and would become one of
the first statesmen in America, and perhaps the very
first." Mr. Webster had now fairly launched his bark upon
the great ocean of public life. He commenced with the
stars and stripes streaming aloft, and he never lowered
them to foreign force or foreign infiuence; he never
dimmed their bright and vivid coloring during the whole
period of his public service. It must be remembered
that he was but thirty-one years of age, and that much
of the mature part of his life had been employed in his
labors at the bar. It must also be remembered that he
was opposed to most of the measures of the existing ad
ministration. Yet in his speech in 1814 he uses the
following language, showing that his country and not
his party reigned supreme in his mind ; « Give up your
futUe projects of invasion. Extinguish the fires which
blaze on your inland frontiers. Unclench the iron grasp
of your embargo. With all the war of the enemy on

13
your commerce, you would still have some commerce
left, if you would cease to make war upon it yourselves.
That commerce would give you some revenue ; apply
that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That
navy will in turn protect your commerce. Let it no
longer be said that nbt one ship of the four built by your
hands since the war, yet fioats upon the ocean. There
the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go
with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they
are, cease at the water's edge."
This and other similar efforts gained for him the rep
utation indicated by the well known remark of Mr.
Lowndes, of South Carolina, "that the North had not his
equal, nor the South his superior." "It must be remem
bered too," observes his biographer, " that these views
were announced a considerable time before Hull, Bain
bridge, and Decatur, had broken the spell of British na
val supremacy."
In August, 1814, Mr. Webster was re-elected to
Congress. At the clpse of the first session, in August,
1816, he removed to Boston, and for several years de
voted himself exclusively to his profession. During
this period he was employed in most of the important
cases in Massachusetts, and many in other States, and
by his masterly logic and commanding eloquence estab
lished a reputation in his own and in our mother coun
try, if not unequalled, certainly not surpassed by any of
his contemporaries.
In the autumn of 1822, Mr. Webster was elected a
member of Congress from the city of Boston, for the ses
sion which commenced in December 1823. This elec
tion was after repeated refusals on the part of Mr.
Webster. In complying with the earnest and anxious

14
desire of the great majority of the citizens of Boston,
he felt that he was making larger sacrifices of duty to
his family than the peaceful condition of national affair^
required. Mr. Everett informs us " that he was at last
called upon in a manner, which seemed to him impera
tive, to make the great sacrifice." Few men, here or
elsewhere, have made so great a pecuniary sacrifice. He
was at the time at the very head of his profession. It
was a period when the dockets of the courts were filled
with cases involving large questions and large amounts,
and Mr. Webster himself must have felt that a consider
able portion of the amount in dispute would, as is gen
erally the case, find its way into professional pockets.
Perhaps I may not improperly here introduce what
may possibly be useful to the rising generation, the little
I know of Mr Webster's system of mental culture.
I had directions from a client, in 1818 or 1819, to
consult him in a case of some importance, a case in which
M^ere presented numerous and cross questions of law
and equity, so ensnarled and entangled, that it required
days and weeks of hard labor to discover a channel way
over its shoals, and amid its rocks. I called on Mr.
Webster on the evening of my arrival in Boston and
stated the nature of the case. He saw its difiiculties
and observed that the early morning was tlie period for
such a labor, and requested me to meet him in his study
at an early hour, which I accordingly did. Before the
hour of dinner, he had threaded all the avenues and
cross paths of the labyrinth, and he gave an opinion so
clear and so comprehensive, that at the dinner table I
was induced to ask him what had been his system of
mental culture. He gave me an outline and the reasons
in support of it. It was this ; that so far as training is

16
concerned, the system which experience has shown to be
most conducive to physical, is equally conducive to
mental power. That the training in both cases should
be the same, that it is a law of our natures, that the
body or the mind that labors constantly, must neces
sarily labor moderately. He instanced the race horse,
which by occasional efforts, in which all its power is ex
erted, followed by periods of entire rest, would in time
add very largely to its speed ; and the great walkers or
runners of our own race, who from small beginnings,
when fifteen or twenty miles a day fatigue them, would
in the end, walk off fifty miles at the rate of five or six
miles an hour. I think that he also mentioned the Lon
don porter, who at first staggering under a load of one
hundred and fifty or two hundred pounds, would in time
carry six or eight hundred pounds with apparent ease.
The same law governs the mind. When employed at
all, all its powers should be exerted to its utmost.
Its fatigue should be followed by its entire rest. He
stated that he was generally in his study at five in the
morning, that whatever mental occupation employed him,
he put forth all his power, and when his mental vision
began to be obscure, he ceased entirely and resorted to
some amusement or light business, as a relaxation. I
remember distinctly his quotation from Chesterfield ;
"do one thing at a time, and whatever is worth doing
at all is worth doing well."
I cannot remember the language but these were his
general views. His views of mental culture led me to
some thought and reflection which ended in the entire con
viction, that the great object in view is mental power and
not mental acquisition alone. The greatest readers are
seldom the most profound thinkers. The mechanics

16
with the greatest variety of tools are not always the best
workmen. Books, as Bacon observes, are but helps to
the mind. Eloquence, such as Hamilton's, Henry's,
Dexter's and Webster's, or Shakspeare's and Demosthe
nes', rarely proceeds from men of great learning. It
is intense thinking, the slow and painful process of con
centrating all the powers upon a given subject, that lies
at the foundation of eloquence. Mr. Webster was an
eminent instance. I was in Washington during the de
bate in the Senate principally by Hayne and Webster,
but my professional engagements deprived me of the
pleasure of listening to it. After the delivery of the
speech of Mr. Webster, many if not all the members at
our table, among many other laudatory remarks, com
mended it for the novelty of its views of the Constitu
tion. When I came to the reading of the printed
speech I recognized what I had seen or heard before,
and finally traced the source of these impressions back
to Mr. Webster himself In a long walk on Rhode-
Island, in the year 1822, he propounded to me for my
opinion, a number of supposed cases of confiict between
the General and the State Governments. I replied that
they were questions of entire novelty which I had never
thought of. He went on to give his views which he did
somewhat at large. From that day up to the reading of
his great argument, I had not bestowed a thought upon
them. The first opportunity I had, I asked Mr. Web
ster if he recollected our walk upon Rhode Island. He
said perfectly well, and he also said that he had occu
pied a large portion of his leisure hours upon the Con
stitution of the United States, and that probably no
question could well arise between the power of the
States and that of the United States, which he was not

17
as ready to discuss as he ever could be. Mr. Justice
Story, to whom I mentioned the circumstance, also sta
ted that to his certain knowledge, Mr. Webster required
little or no preparation for questions of that character ;
that he had thought deeply and intensely on the sub
ject for years, and was therefore prepared at any time
and upon any occasion.
I may also add as an illustration of the elevation of
his character, that I have often been associated with Mr.
Webster and have often been opposed to him before the
judicial tribunals of the country, that I have heard his
arguments in the Supreme Court of the United States, in
most of the great cases in which he was concerned as
counsel ; that I was also in his confidence in some po
litical movements of great delicacy, and have often con
versed with him in relation to the character and con
duct of the leading men of the opposite party, as well
as of his own political rivals, and that from the begin
ning to the end of my acquaintance with him, I never
heard him speak disparagingly of any one of these gen
tlemen nor of any other human being.
I have stated that Mr. Webster had consented to com
ply with the wishes of the people of Boston, and that
he had been elected as their Representative to the Con
gress of 1823. His biographer, Mr. Everett, the sincere
and highly gifted friend of Mr. Webster states, " it was
the main inducement of Mr. Webster in returning to po
litical life, that the cessation of the coarse confiict of
party warfare seemed to hold out some hope, that
statesmanship of a higher order, an impartial study of
the great interests of the country, and a policy aiming
to promote the development of its vast natural resources
might be called into action."

18
At this period it will be remembered that Mr. Monroe
was the President of the United States, and that party
politics which had lost some of their bitterness during
the wise and impartial administration of Mr. Madison,
hacl almost ceased to exist under the administration of
his successor, James Monroe.
Europe, however, was in a convulsive and agitated
state. Revolutions had broken out in Naples, in Pied
mont, and in Spain, while a fierce war was raging in
Greece between the Turk and the Greek. Mr. Monroe
had in his messages, the two previous sessions, called
the attention of Congress to this subject, but no action
of either House hacl been had upou it. In the beginning
of the session, Mr. Webster submitted to the House of
Representatives, the following resolution:
Resolved, That provision ought to be made by law, for defraying
the expenses incident to the appointment of an Agent or Commis
sioner to Greece, whenever the President shal] deem it expedient to
make such appointment.
This resolution was supported by a masterly speech
from Mr. Webster. It evinces in the clearest manner
his earnest desire that all other nations might have ex
tended to them the civil and political freedom, the bless
ings of which we had so fully enjoyed. His speech was
delivered to a crowded house, on the 19 th of January,
1824. The great reputation which had been acquired
by Mr. Webster, by his speeches in the House of Repre
sentatives six years before, his unsurpassed efforts at the
bar in the interval, as well as several addresses of a na
tional character, filled the house at an early hour. Mr.
Everett very justly says of this speech, -"it was as re
markable for what it did not, as for what it did say."
His heart was animated with the the most earnest wish

19
and the ardent hope, that something might be done for
the down trodden Greek. His exordium is filled with a
power and beauty which Webster and Webster alone
could at any time command.
"An occasion," he says, "which calls the attention to a
spot so distinguished, so connected with interesting re
collections, as Greece, may naturally create something of
warmth and enthusiasm. In a grave political discus
sion, however, it is necessary that those feelings should
be chastised. I shall endeavor properly to repress them,
though it is impossible that they should be altogether
extinguished. We must indeed fly behind the civilized
world. We must pass the dominion of law and the
boundaries of knowledge. We must, more especially,
withdraw ourselves from this place, und the scenes and
objects Avhich here surround us, if we would separate
ourselves entirely from the influence of those memorials
of herself which ancient Greece has transmitted, for the
admiration and benefit of mankind."
In allusion to the doctrines established by Russia,
Prussia and Austria, at their holy and august meeting
at Lay bach, in 1821, he says, "now, sir, this principle
would carry Europe back again, at once, into the mid
dle of the dark ages. It is the old doctrine ofthe divine
right of kings advanced now by new advocates, and sus
tained by a formidable array ofpower."
One of the extraordinary and most dangerous preten
sions advanced by this congress of crowned heads was,
their right distinctly asserted, to take a hostile attitude
in regard to those States in which the overthrow of their
government may operate as an example. These are the
very words of this congress, and which Webster pro-

20
nounced to be a "most fiagrant violation of public law
and national independence."
"No matter," he says, "what may be the character of
the government resisted ; no matter with what weight
the foot of the oppressor bears on the neck of the op
pressed ; if he struggles or if he complains, he sets a
dangerous example of resistance, and from that moment
he becomes an object of hostility to the most powerful
potentates of the earth. I want words to express my
abhorrence of this abominable principle."
Mr. Webster pursues this strain of lofty eloquence in
vindication of the rights ofthe people of every nation to
govern themselves, at great length, and concludes this
part of the subject with these emphatic words :
" If the authority of all these governments be hereaf
ter to be mixed and blended, and to fiow in one augmen
ted current of prerogative over the face of Europe,
sweeping away all resistance in its course, it will yet re
main for us to secure our own happiness by the preser
vation of our own principles; which I hope we shall
have the manliness to express on all proper occasions,
and the spirit to defend in every extremity."
His biographer informs us that " his words of en
couragement were read in every capital, and at every
Court in Europe, and in every continental language;
they were received with grateful emotions in Greece."
I have consumed more time upon this part of the
public services of Mr. Webster, because I have had other
means of knowing that the ardent wish of his heart was,
that our bright example might spread, from nation to
nation, until the freedom of the people should extend
over the whole civilized world.

21
His speech in April, 1826, in favor of the right of the
Provinces of Spain in South America, is equally strong
and eloquent in support of the right of the people to es
tablish such a government as their own wisdom might
dictate. .\ .
In the month of June, 1827, Mr. Webster was elected
to the Senate of the United States by a large majority of
the votes of the two Houses composing the legislature
of Massachusetts. The Presidential term of General
Jackson, it will be remembered, commenced on the 4th
of March, 1829. It will also be remembered, that on
the 29th of December, 1829, Mr. Foot of Connecticut,
introduced a resolution in relation to the public lands in
these words :
Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to en
quire and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within
each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a
certain period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have
heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the
minimum price. And also whether the office of Surveyor General,
and some of the land offices may not be abolished without detrimeiiit
to the public interest.
The consideration of the resolution was not resumed
until the 13th day of January, when Mr. Benton of
Missouri, spoke against it with his usual ability and with
the full force of his characteristic severity. It must be
remembered in connection with the present subject, that
South Carolina was the State, whose Senators and Rep
resentatives in Congress in 1816 were among the ablest
and most earnest supporters of the system of protection
to the manufacturing industry of the country. No man
lent more efiicient aid to establish that system than did
Mr. Calhoun. But for some years previous to 1830 a
change had taken place in the minds of Southern men in

22
regard to the effects of protective laws upon the great in
terests of the Southern States. In order to obtain a re
peal of those laws, it was contended that they were not
only injurious in their general effect, but also that they
were unconstitutional and void. This had become the
general sentiment of South Carolina, and had also been
largely difi'used through all the cotton growing States. It
was also contended that the American Constitution is
not a constitution established by the people of the United
States, but a compact of the several States, and that con
sequently each State has a right to nullify that compact
whenever in its opinion it has been violated by the gov
ernment of the United States. This pretension embodied
itself in the general phrase, the doctrine of Nullification.
South Carolina felt her inability to contend single hand
ed against the government of the United States. It
therefore became of vital importance to obtain the aid of
other States in support of this new and extraordinary doc
trine. The Western States at that period were but thin
ly settled, and their obvious interest was to attract new
settlers by very low prices for government lands. The
resolution of Mr. Foot was a mere resolution of inquiry.
But as it afforded an opportunity to the Representatives
from South Carolina to create an ill feeling in the We?t
against New England, and thus gain the aid of the West
to their new theory of nullification, it was seized upon
with avidity by Colonel Hayne, a Senator from South
Carolina. He therefore represented the tariff laws as
having originated in New England, and as operating ben
eficially for New England and injuriously to all the other
States. Mr. Benton caught the bait thro^vn out for the
West, and on the 18th of January spoke at great length
and with his usual bitterness against the resolution.

23
Other members took part in the debate, and Colonel
Hayne occupied the rest of the day and the whole of the
succeeding day.
Up to this time Mr. Webster had taken no part in the
debate, but had been occupied with the management of
a case in the Supreme Court. Tie heard only the clo.s-
ing part of Colonel Hayne's argument.
It has been stated, that the speech of Colonel Hayne
had made a deep impression on the public mind ; that the
friends of nullification all over the city, were highly ela
ted and fully confident of a triumphant victory; while on
the other hand, the friends of the constitution were de
jected and dispirited. There is some truth and some er
ror in this statement. It was not the argument of Colonel
Hayne in favor of the constitutional right of a State to
nullify a law of the United States, that caused those fears
and apprehensions. The argument upon that question,
notwithstanding the aid furnished him by Mr. Calhoun,
required a depth and power of logic which Colonel Hayne
did not possess. He entered the field clothed in the ar
mor of Achilles, but he Avanted the power and skill of
Achilles to use it. He was a gentleman and a scholar.with
a flow of musical sentences, and a power of side thrusts
well calculated to enlist the West against New England
and indirectly in favor of nullification. It was evident
that the minds of many had been powerfully impressed.
The magnitude of the question alone created an intense
anxiety. At no period, upon no occasion has there ever
been in this country, or in any country, a spectacle so
grand and so novel, so full of danger, and at the same
time so peacefuUy conducted. It involved all the highest
interests, not only present but future, of every man in
the country. It involved the question of our national

24
existence. It involved the question of the civil and so
cial freedom of the human race. History records no event
in the world's great changes for three thousand years of
such deep interest. Poetry has never raised its imagina
tion high enough to catch even a distant view of so sub
lime and magnificent a spectacle as was that trial of a
nation's existence in the American Senate.
The Representatives of the first great and free Repub
lic the world has ever known were there. Their hearts
were filled with emotions of the loftiest patriotism. —
Most of the minor feelings of party strife and political
ambition fled from their bosoms as darkness flees before
the sun-light of heaven. Representatives of all the for
eign Courts were there. Some of them had read Chat
ham, and listened perhaps to Pitt, to Fox, to Sheridan
and Burke. They felt, and they expressed their feelings,
that their blood ran in our veins. They felt, and felt
deeply, that the great question of human civilization de
pended upon the union of these young and giant States ,
and that if our course continued onward we should draw
all other civilized communities after us ; that if we failed,
maukind would be driven back to feudal darkness and op
pression. Many were there who had fought under Wash
ington, and into whose hearts he had breathed his own
intense love of country. Men of science, and men of lit
erary eminence were there, and all this vast audience was
graced by a gallery of beauty, such as never before looked
down upon the deliberations of the Senate.
Such was the occasion, and such the audience. The
presence of a hundred Kings, Saxon or Gallic, could have
added nothing to its sublimity. The accumulated wealth
of the Indies could have added nothing to its lustre.

 25
The great and brilliant victory over the enemies of
human freedom there achieved was the work of Daniel
Webster alone. There were at that period around him,
in Congress and out of Congress, many of the ablest
men of the times, men intimately acquainted with the
whole scope and all the bearings of the Constitution,
men of great learning and great power. Had they deem
ed it necessary, they could have aided the great cause
with a high order of eloquence and a profound pow
er of logic. Yet, as I was informed at the time, so
great was their confidence in the vast resources of his un
surpassed, if not unequalled mind, that they did not fur
nish him with a single suggestion. They feared that they
might dim his broader and clearer vision with their own
lesser lights. They left him alone ; they left him to en
circle his brow with a crown of glory, which, from the
days of the Mede and the Persian down to the present,
has never encircled the brow of hero, or statesman, of
emperor or king. From that period to the present, " if
the Tartar and the Arab have not conversed about him
in their tents," every American heart has " swelled with
a just and noble pride, at the mention ofhis name."
After this signal overthrow in her appeal to the wis
dom of our national rulers, South Carolina threatened
an appeal to arms. At the close of 1832, the doctrine
of nullification was recommended by a State Convention.
" This decisive act," says Mr. Everett, " aroused the hero
of New-Orleans. Confidential orders to hold themselves
in readiness for active service were sent in every direction
to the officers of the army and the navy. Prudent and
resolute men were quietly stationed at the proper posts.
Arms and munitions in abundance were held in rea
diness, and a chain of expresses in advance of the mails

26
was established from the Capital to Charleston. These
preparations made, the Presidential proclamationof the
llth of December, 1832, was issued. It was writ
ten by Edward Livingston, then Secretary of State,
from notes furnished by General Jackson himself, hut
there was not an idea of importance in it which may not
he found in Mr. Webster's speech on Mr. Foofs resolution.
This was met by a counter proclamation of Governor
Hayne, of South Carolina ; and on the 16th of January
" a bill to provide for the collection of duties on imports,"
was introduced into the Senate upon the suggestion of
the President.
On the following day Mr. Calhoun introduced a series
of resolutions in the Senate, affirming the power of a
State to nullify an act of Congress. On the 15th and
16th of February, he spoke in opposition to the Force bill,
and in support of his resolutions. Mr. Everett observes
that " on this occasion the doctrine of nullification was
supported with far greater ability than it had been by
Colonel Hayne." Mr. Webster replied to Mr. Calhoun
on the 16th and 17th, in a speech, which for close, com
pact reasoning, lucid arrangement, and the clear, broad
path of light which runs through it from beginning to
end, exceeds all other speeches which it has ever been
my good fortune to examine. The great argument of
Demosthenes upon the Crown approaches the nearest
to it.
His speech in reply to Colonel Hayne is more exhila
rating. It embraces a greater variety of topics. It is
evident, from the beginning to the end of that reply,
that he treated Colonel Hayne as a kind-hearted giant
would play with a child. He would lift him up and
ease him down gently and good naturedly.

27
It was with a different feeling that he replied to Mr.
Calhoun. He felt that he had a labor before him. The
reasoning of the great nuUifier is as close as is that of Mr.
Webster. x\dmit the proposition that he starts with and
you admit the whole doctrine of nullification. The pro
position was, that the Constitution is a compact between
the States. If so, then the States must necessarily be
the judges of what is a violation of the compact. Mr.
W^ebster denied the proposition and disproved it by al
most , every line and letter of the Constitution itself.
Whatever calamities may waylay and beset our fature
path, we may rest assured that no future statesman will
have the hardihood to call up even the ghost of nullifi
cation. This last speech from Mr. Webster drew a highly
complimentary letter from the venerable James Madison,
one of the framers ofthe Constitution, in which he coin
cides with all the views he had presented.
The bill introduced into the House of Representatives
to provide for the collection of the revenue, by using
force should it be necessary, met with opposition. Mr.
Everett informs us " that the aid of Mr. Webster was
personally solicited in the great debate by a member of
the Cabinet, but it was not granted until the biU had
undergone important amendments suggested by him,
when it was given cordially, without stint and withou/
condition." Without descending to further particulars, I will re
mark, that throughout this period of the severest trial of
the strength of our Constitution and government, Gene
ral Jackson depended not upon his Cabinet, nor upon
any of the leading men of his own political faith, but
upon Daniel Webster.

28
I now approach another great event in the life of Mr.
Webster ; an event which fully shows that he was not
merely the most eloquent living orator, but the most
far-seeing and energetic diplomatist of the age in which
he lived, if not of all preceding ages. It evinces also,
and most fully evinces, that, although he had political
opinions and political friends that he held in high es
teem, he also had a heart for his country, and that for
that country he would sacrifice all minor ties. He made
the sacrifice promptly and unhesitatingly ; and it is cer
tain, very certain, that but for him and him alone, un
aided and unassisted, this country would have been in
volved in a long and bloody war with Great Britain, or
in commercial distresses and border forays, almost as de
structive as war itself. I refer, I need not say, to the
Ashburton treaty.
The causes which, but for him, would have led to a
rupture with Great Britain, were numerous and threat
ening. The British government, in order to put an end
to the trade in human fiesh, had, at different times, en
tered into compacts with several of the different govern
ments of Europe, authorising a mutual right of search
by the armed cruisers of each. This right, the govern
ment of the United States had refused to acknowledge.
In 1841 it was conceded by France, by Russia, and by
Austria and Prussia ; but owing in a great degree to the
arguments of Mr. Webster, the treaty was finally an
nulled and its entire doctrine repudiated. The British
government gave up the right of search, but for a con
siderable time contended for the right to visit vessels
suspected of being concerned in the African slave trade,
Mr. Webster demonstrated so clearly that the right to
visit necessarily embraced the right to search, that this

29
claim was also abandoned. His ground was that the
American flag should protect itself, and the leading jour
nals of Europe acknowledged that a death blow had been
given to the whole English doctrine of impressment, of
search and of visit.
It muet be remembered that when Mr. Webster came
into the Cabinet of President Harrison, the prospect of a
war was threatening ; and that Mr. Stevenson, our Min
ister in London, felt it to be his, duty to open a corres
pondence with the commander of the American squad
ron in the Mediterranean.
Notwithstanding the death-blow which had been giv
en to the doctrine of impressment, there remained two
other subjects of dispute — the trial of McLeod for the
destruction of the American steamboat Caroline in our
waters, and the long standing controversy in relation to
our northern boundary line. McLeod, however, was
acquitted by a New-York jury, on the ground that he
was a British soldier, and had acted under the orders
of his commanding officer, and that those orders had
been confirmed by the British government.
The preeminence of the mind of Mr. Webster over the
minds of all the greatest statesmen of the age in which
he Hved, was fuUy exhibited in the management of the
exciting controversy in relation to our northern line.
That controversy had been the subject of negotiation for
fifty-eight years. It had employed the best talents of the
statesmen of bo.th countries for a large portion of that
period. The King of the Netherlands had been appoint
ed arbitrator by the two governments, and he made a
report which dissatisfied both parties. General Jackson
undertook the settlement of the complicated dispute,
with the successive aid of Mr. Van Buren, Mr. Livings-

30
ton, Mr. McLean and Mr. Forsyth. In every message from
the beginning to the end of both his administrations, one
prominent feature was the failure of all attemps to settle
this long standing controversy. Mr. Van Buren, during
the four years of his administration, did all that he could
do. He made and he received propositions. But what sat
isfied one party dissatisfied the other, and at the close of
his administration the aspect of affairs was more threaten
ing than at any former period. In the meantime, out
breaks had taken place on the border land, which seri
ously threatened the peace of the two nations. In 1839,
the State of Maine placed in the hands of the Governor
eight hundred thousand dollars for military purposes,
and raised a little army to defend the line to which she
claimed. It was observed that thus far everything had
awaited " the sluggish fiow of the current of diplomacy."
It had also been proposed to leave the whole dispute to
three Kings, authorizing them to invoke the aid of three
scientific men.
Soon after Mr. Webster was appointed Secretary of
State, he proposed to the British Minister to establish a
conventional line. This proposition was made known
to Sir Robert Peel, who at once advised its acceptance
without delay. Lord Ashburton was named as the per
son best qualified to conduct the negotiation. He at
first declined it, but upon refiecting upon the subject, he
was induced to accept it. He said his scruples were
removed in a great degree by the exalted opinion he had
formed of Mr. Webster when in England. He came to
this country. The proposition of Mr. Webster was
submitted to him and accepted. He also proposed that
all parties having any interest in the question in dis
pute should have a voice in determining the line. He

31
therefore invited Maine and Massachusetts to send Com
missioners to Washington. A special session ofthe legis
lature of Maine was called, and four Commissioners select
ed from her wisest and ablest men were sent to Washing
ton. In other words, the parties alone interested in the
controversy were brought together. England, the United
States, Massachusetts and Maine, settled the whole con
troversy in about as many hours as it would take two
neighboring farmers disposed to live amicably together,
to settle a line involving a few rods of land on one side
or the other. This treaty was submitted to the Senate
of the United States, and confirmed by an almost unani
mous vote. Thus terminated a controversy of fifty-eight
years duration, which carried us at times to the very
verge of war with a nation, with which it was our high
est interest to remain at peace.
I believe that I may safely say that no instance can
be found in modern diplomacy, of the settlement of a
national question involving important national interests,
with so much dispatch, so little expense, and in a man
ner so entirely satisfactory to men in all parts of the
country, and of all political opinions.
You may well imagine that, as Mr. Webster's mind
first suggested this simple and obviously only mode of
bringing this controversy to a peaceful termination, much
of the labor must also have devolved upon him. This
was probably the fact. But all labor was light to him
in the service of his country. He brought to that great
effort the heart of a Patriot and the capacious mind of a
lofty Statesman. He saw that upon his untiring efforts
depended the onward march of a great and a free peo
ple, and he never faltered in his course until the splendid
work was fully accompUshed, While we lament his

32
death, we rejoice that he was born upon American soil,
that he toiled not for himself, but for American freedom
and American renown, and that he has left behind him
a body of American law and American literature which
will be coeval with the language of his native land.
My friends there is a degree of intellectual greatness
beyond the reach of eulogy ; there is a universality of
admiration more eloquent than language ; there is a
sublimity of moral grandeur, which neither the poet,
the historian, nor the orator can adequately portray.
Who now thinks of conveying to another mind a full
picture of the lofty narrative of Thucydides, the soul-
stirring and life-like scenes of Shakspeare, the severe
logic and terrific denunciations of Demosthenes, or the
moral grandeur and enduring patriotism of Washington ¦?
Language alone is inadequate to the full performance of
such a task.
It is a truth universally acknowledged by men of all
religious persuasions and all political faiths, that by the
death of Mr. Webster, we have lost not only a great
man. but a sincere patriot. He had a great head and a
great heart. There was no stinted measure about him.
He seemed in all respects to have been made for the
period in which he lived. He seemed to have been de
signed and set apart for the performance of labors which
no other man, in our day, could so well perform. All
the Herculean task of sustaining our inimitable Consti
tution against the attacks " of sophists, calculators
and economists" rested, as did the heavens upon Atlas,
upon the shoulders of Daniel Webster,
As a general truth, whenever a question arose, not
connected with party politics, Avhich in any wise involv
ed the constitutional powers of the general government.

 33 
Mr, Webster was appealed to for light, which could be
provided by no other mind.
But it was not upon great occasions alone that his
great powers were manifested. It was not the loftiness
ofthe subject that conferred such a power and dignity
ofmind. On the contrary, every subject seemed to de
rive additional dignity from the ease, the simplicity, and
the naturalness with which he discussed it. Whether
it was the interpretation of the Constitution in the Sen
ate, or the cheerful conversation of the fire-side, he was
generally more instructive and interesting than most
other men. His humor was of the same family as his
logic. The playfulness of his mind was as fascinating
as its loftier and more intense workings were majestic
and commanding. He was a sort of intellectual Achilles,
and would often demolish the argument of his Hector
in a single circuit around its bulwarks. He would often
comprehend all the vital parts of a complicated case in a
single proposition.
Place him wherever we might, his mind seemed at
once to adjust itself to the occasion. Its power of con
traction or enlargement seemed to me above that of any
other man I ever met with. I have been with him more
than once, when the Colossus who approached nearer to
him than any other of the great men I have seen him with,
was present. By this you will understand that I refer
to Mr, Calhoun, I have been with him when lawyers
and orators, book makers and book readers, and now
and then a man of science were present. I have also
been alone with him on the banks of the trout brook
and on the rocks of the ocean coast, and I do not re
member that I ever parted with him without an increas
ed admiration of his mind. He not only brought more

34
than his share of wisdom and learning to every intellec
tual banquet, but more also of humor. His very presence
elevated our conception of the dignity of man ;
" A combination and a form indeed,
Where every God did seem to set his seal.
To give the world assurance of a man."
At times he has also transported my mind to a be
lief in the entire truth of the beautiful remark of Boling
broke : " Socrates entered a prison with the same coun
tenance with which he subdued the thirty tyrants. He
took from off the place its ignominy. For how could it
be a prison while Socrates was there ]"
But, my friends, it was not my object to present to
your minds the whole ofthe mental character, or many
even of the valuable public services of Daniel Webster,
but to confine myself mainly to his lofty, uniform and
untiring efforts to impress upon the public mind the
great truth, that our prosperity, our peace, and all that
is valuable in life, depend upon the preservation of the
Constitution, To this great work he devoted nearly his
whole life. To this he sacrificed pleasure, fortune and
all party attachments. Wherever and whenever an at
tack was made upon the Constitution by friend or foe,
Daniel Webster was seen upon its outward wall, pro
claiming in words of living light :
" While the Union lasts, we have high, exciting, grati
fying prospects spread out before us, for us and for our
children. Beyond that, I seek not to penetrate the veil,
God grant in my day, at least, that curtain may never
rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be open
ed what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to
behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not
see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments

35
of a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discord
ant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drench
ed, it may be, in fraternal blood. Let their last feeble
and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign
of the Republic, uoav known and honored throughout
the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies
streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or
polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto,
no such miserable interrogatory as What is all this worth ?
nor those other words of delusion and folly, Liberty
first and Union afterwards ; but everywhere spread all
over in characters of living Ught, blazing on its ample
folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and
in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sen
timent, dear to every true American heart, ' Liberty and
Union, now and forever, one and inseparable.' "
This is but one of the outpourings of that mighty heart,
every throb of which was for his country. His flrst and
strongest desire was the permanent union of these States
for the sake of the States, His next, that, influenced
by our example, all the civiUzed nations of Europe,
might in time come within our principles and adopt our
institutions. He embraced the freedom of the world
in his broad and capacious mind. He must have seen
that the time for so great a change, if not at hand, is not
far removed in the future. Although God, for some
wise purpose to us unknown, has inseparably connected
moral good and moral evil in all the great elements of
nature, yet we also know that in the progress of human
society, the good has been graduaUy gaining upon the
evil. Both the Greek and the Roman were miUtary repub
Ucs. They began the great work of human civiUzation,

36
but they began with inadequate means and they failed.
The countries over which they ruled, were conquered by
countless hordes of barbarians, and darkness for a time
seemed to reign over the entire globe. Yet amid this
darkness a ray of light remained. Hordes of Scandina
vian pirates overran and inhabited the British Isles.
That ray of light expanded itself into Magna Charta, and
Magna Charta, under the influence of the Saxon spirit,
expanded itself Avith a broader and purer effulgence, into
the American Constitution, Through all these great
changes, the great principles of human freedom were
gaining strength, slowly and gradually, but gaining.
Amid the ocean of blood that has been spilled in mod
ern Europe, it is still certain that she has advanced in
civilization for the last two centuries. The tyrant's rod
has often been Avielded by the Saxon arm of England,
and poverty has been confined to its destitution by op
pressive and arbitrary laws. The English poor of the
present day are continued poor by the unequal distribu
tion of property in former days, and by too large a popu
lation for so small a space. God in his Avisdom has pro
vided a remedy for this evil, a remedy Avhich human wis
dom did not cA^en dream of ten years ago. The means of
emigration to this country have increased ten fold within
that period. Within that period also, gold has been dis
covered in California and Australia, California is nearly
ten times as large as the three British Islands. Australia
contains more square miles than the whole continent of
Europe. Steam is transporting thousands upon thou
sands, probably nearly half a million a year, to this coun
try and to Australia, The rich, the Avell educated, and
the pauper, work side by side upon the same farm and
in the same mine. English newspapers and English

37
Reviews already begin to complain that the labor of their
country will soon be insufficient to supply the necessary
demand. The price of labor will therefore rise, and rise
with a rapidity never before knoAvn. The balance of
social wants and dependencies is changing, and changing
rapidly. The poor will not much longer depend upon
the rich for employment, but the rich will depend upon
the poor for labor. Would it be among the wildest
dreams of the imagination, should we say that the time
is not far distant when we shall pay the debt we OAve to
England for the Saxon blood she gave us, by favoring
her with a copy ofthe American Constitution!
It is not given us to know the future. We can form
some judgment, however, of coming events from the con
stantly increasing and enlarging agencies ofthe two great
instruments of human intelligence and human freedom,
— the spirit of commerce and the spirit of the press.
It has been said, or imagined, that lofty mountains of
hard and solid rock have been worn doAvn to the level
of the earth by the corrosion of the atmosphere. But
commerce and the press together will make much shorter
work with Austria, Russia and Prussia, Nothing but
a wall of fire as broad and as high as the Andes can
protect them from the infiuence of these great leveUing
agencies. Such agencies have never before existed.
Their sphere of action is every day enlarging. Like
the great elements of nature, they produce much of evU,
but much more of good.
We have all of us, perhaps, indulged too much in
bitter anathemas against EngUsh severities and encroach
ments upon the rights ofthe semi-barbarous races of Hin
dostan, But moral evU and moral good seem to go hand
in hand in the great work of human civiUzation, We

38
have exterminated more than half the savage tribes of
this country, and who regrets it, England has her hold
upon Burmah and Siam, and in time she will pass through
China to the Pacific. Her arms will be accompanied by
her laws and her literature, and those great civilizers of
modern days, commerce and the press. Before those
who are just beginning life shall become old, our com
merce, our language and our laws will be planted on
both sides of the great Pacific, and " Hail Columbia !
happy land," will ascend in the voices of millions of
freemen, for more than a thousand miles along the islands
of Japan,
Nothing can prevent this preA'alence over the world
of our institutions, but the entire failure of the great
experiment in this extended country, — Therefore, said
Mr. Webster, hold on to the Union, If we fail, the
cause of free governments throughout the world will
fail. Despotism will sharpen its sword and strengthen
its arm, and superstition again unfurl her blood stained
banner. Let us therefore hold on our course a little
longer, a little longer,
Daniel Webster our greatest statesman, the giant in
tellect of the age, has left us. But he has left his own
great works behind him. We have also the works of
other great minds, the railroad and the telegraph. These
iron chains are binding these States closer and closer
together. A knowledge of the comforts, the intelligence,
and the power of a great and free people, is spreading
wider and Avider over the world. By the aid of steam
it has become a mere relaxation from toil, to cross the
wide Atlantic, American newspapers and American men,
are daily addressing the European mind in European
languages. The seed is planted. The planters are still

39
at work, widening that field and enriching that soil.
Hold on a little longer, a little longer, to the work which
employed his whole life, the success of which was the
great hope of his broad and expansive heart. Hold on
to the Constitution and the Union, now and forever.