Famous American Statesmen

The boy of seventeen went back to Dartmouth to struggle with poverty alone, but he was happy; the boy of nineteen began a new life, studying under Dr. Wood, and, later, entered Dartmouth College.

Daniel, as he had promised, began to earn money to pay his own and his brother's way. By superintending a small weekly paper, called the Dartmouth Gazette, he earned enough to pay his board. In the winter he taught school, and gave the money to Ezekiel. While in college, his wonderful powers in debate began to manifest themselves. He wrote his own declamations. Said one of his classmates: "In his movements he was rather slow and deliberate, except when his feelings were aroused; then his whole soul would kindle into a flame. We used to listen to him with the deepest respect and interest, and no one ever thought of equalling the vigor and flow of his eloquence."

Beside his regular studies, he devoted himself to history and politics. From the old world he learned lessons in finance, in commerce, in the stability of governments, that he was able to use in after life. He remembered what he read. He says, "So much as I read I made my own. When a half-hour or an hour, at most, had elapsed, I closed my book, and thought over what I had read. If there was anything peculiarly interesting or striking in the passage, I endeavored to recall it, and lay it up in my memory, and commonly I could recall it. Then, if, in debate or conversation afterward, any subject came up on which I had read something, I could talk very easily so far as I had read, and then I was very careful to stop." In this manner Mr. Webster became skilled in the art of conversation, and could be the life of any social gathering.

On July 4, 1800, he delivered his first public speech, at the request of the people of Hanover, tracing the history of our country to the grand success of the Revolution.

On leaving college he entered the law office of Mr. T. W. Thompson, of Salisbury. He seems not to have inclined strongly to the law, his tastes leading him toward general literature, but he was guided by the wishes of his father and other friends. His first reading was in the Law of Nations – Vattel, Burlamaqui, and Montesquieu, followed by Blackstone's Commentaries. After four months, he was obliged to quit his studies and earn money for Ezekiel.

He obtained a school at Fryeburg, Maine, promising to teach for six months for one hundred and seventy-five dollars. Four nights each week he copied deeds, and made in this way two dollars a week. Thirty years afterward he said, "The ache is not yet out of my fingers; for nothing has ever been so laborious to me as writing, when under the necessity of writing a good hand."

When May came with its week of vacation, he says, "I took my quarter's salary, mounted a horse, went straight over all the hills to Hanover, and had the pleasure of putting these, the first earnings of my life, into my brother's hands for his college expenses. Having enjoyed this sincere and high pleasure, I hied me back again to my school and my copying of deeds." Thus at twenty was the great American living out Emerson's sublime motto, "Help somebody," founded on that broadest and sweetest of all commands, "Love one another."

"In these days," says George Ticknor Curtis' delightful life of Webster, "he was always dignified in his deportment. He was usually serious, but often facetious and pleasant. He was an agreeable companion, and eminently social with all who shared his friendship. He was greatly beloved by all who knew him. His habits were strictly abstemious, and he neither took wine nor strong drink. He was punctual in his attendance upon public worship, and ever opened his school with prayer. I never heard him use a profane word, and never saw him lose his temper."

While teaching and copying deeds, he read Adam's "Defence of the American Constitutions," Williams' "Vermont," Mosheim's "Ecclesiastical History," and continued his Blackstone. He walked much in the fields, alone, and thus learned to know himself; gaining that power of thought and mastery of self which are essential to those who would have mastery over others. He said, "I loved this occasional solitude then, and have loved it ever since, and love it still. I like to contemplate nature, and to hold communion, unbroken by the presence of human beings, with 'this universal frame – this wondrous fair.' I like solitude also, as favorable to thoughts less lofty. I like to let the thoughts go free, and indulge excursions. And when thinking is to be done one must, of course, be alone. No man knows himself who does not thus sometimes keep his own company. At a subsequent period of life, I have found that my lonely journeys, when following the court on its circuits, have afforded many an edifying day."

And yet in this busy life he called himself "naturally indolent," which was true, probably. Seeing that most of us do not love work, it is wise that in early life, if we would accomplish anything, we are drilled into habits of industry.

When he went back to the study of law, he says, "I really often despaired. I thought I never could make myself a lawyer, and was almost going back to the business of school-keeping. There are propositions in Coke so abstract, and distinctions so nice, and doctrines embracing so many conditions and qualifications, that it requires an effort not only of a mature mind, but of a mind both strong and mature, to understand him." And yet he adds, "If one can keep up an acquaintance with general literature in the meantime, the law may help to invigorate and unfold the powers of the mind."

He longed, as every ambitious young man longs, for a wider sphere. If he could only go to Boston, and mingle with the cultivated society there! – but this seemed an impossibility. At this time Ezekiel, through a college friend, was offered a private school in Boston. He accepted the position, and wrote to Daniel urging him to come and teach Latin and Greek for an hour and a half each day, thus earning enough to pay his board.

Daniel went to Boston, poor and unknown. His first efforts in finding an office in which to study were unsuccessful, for who cares about a young stranger in a great city? If we looked upon a human being as his Maker looks, doubtless we should be interested in him. He desired to study with some one already prominent. He found his way to the office of Christopher Gore, who was the first district attorney of the United States for Massachusetts, a commissioner to England under Jay's treaty for eight years, Ex-Governor of the State, and ex-senator. Mr. Webster thus narrates his early experience: "A young man, as little known to Mr. Gore as myself, undertook to introduce me to him. We ventured into Mr. Gore's rooms, and my name was pronounced. I was shockingly embarrassed, but Mr. Gore's habitual courtesy of manner gave me courage to speak. I had the grace to begin with an unaffected apology, told him my position was very awkward, my appearance there very like an intrusion; and that if I expected anything but a civil dismission, it was only founded in his known kindness and generosity of character. I was from the country, I said; had studied law for two years; had come to Boston to study a year more; had some respectable acquaintances in New Hampshire, not unknown to him, but had no introduction; that I had heard he had no clerk; thought it possible he would receive one; that I came to Boston to work, not to play; was most desirous, on all accounts, to be his pupil; and all I ventured to ask at present was that he would keep a place for me in his office till I could write to New Hampshire for proper letters, showing me worthy of it. I delivered this speech trippingly on the tongue, though I suspect it was better composed than spoken. Mr. Gore heard me with much encouraging good-nature. He evidently saw my embarrassment; spoke kind words, and asked me to sit down. My friend had already disappeared. Mr. Gore said what I had suggested was very reasonable, and required little apology… He inquired, and I told him, what gentlemen of his acquaintance knew me and my father in New Hampshire. Among others, I remember I mentioned Mr. Peabody, who was Mr. Gore's classmate. He talked to me pleasantly for a quarter of an hour; and, when I rose to depart, he said: 'My young friend, you look as though you might be trusted. You say you come to study, and not to waste time. I will take you at your word. You may as well hang up your hat at once; go into the other room; take your book, and sit down to reading it, and write at your convenience to New Hampshire for your letters.'"

The young man must have had the same earnest, frank look as the father when Washington said to him, "Captain Webster, I believe I can trust you," else he would not have won his way so quickly to the lawyer's confidence. Mr. Gore was a man of indefatigable research and great amenity of manners. The younger man probably unconsciously took on the habits of the older, for, says Emerson, "With the great we easily become great."

Webster now read, in addition to books on the common and municipal law, Ward's "Law of Nations," Lord Bacon's "Elements," Puffendorff's "Latin History of England," Gifford's "Juvenal," Boswell's "Tour to the Hebrides," Moore's "Travels," and other works. When we know what books a man or woman reads, we generally know the person. The life in Mr. Gore's office was one long step on the road to fame, and it did not come by chance; it came because, even in timidity, Webster had the courage to ask for a high place.

When about ready for admission to the bar, the position of Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas of Hillsborough County was offered to him, an appointment which had been the desire of the family for him for years. The salary was fifteen hundred dollars. This seemed a fortune indeed. "I could pay all the debts of the family," he says, "could help on Ezekiel – in short, I was independent. I had no sleep that night, and the next morning when I went to the office I stepped up the stairs with a lighter heart than I ever had before." He conveyed the good news to Mr. Gore.

"Well, my young friend," said he, "the gentlemen have been very kind to you; I am glad of it. You must thank them for it. You will write immediately, of course."

"I told him that I felt their kindness and liberality very deeply; that I should certainly thank them in the best manner I was able; but that, I should go up to Salisbury so soon, I hardly thought it was necessary to write. He looked at me as if he was greatly surprised. 'Why,' said he, 'you don't mean to accept it, surely!' The bare idea of not accepting it so astounded me that I should have been glad to have found any hole to have hid myself in… 'Well,' said he, 'you must decide for yourself; but come, sit down, and let us talk it over. The office is worth fifteen hundred a year, you say. Well, it never will be any more. Ten to one, if they find out it is so much, the fees will be reduced. You are appointed now by friends; others may fill their places who are of different opinions, and who have friends of their own to provide for. You will lose your place; or, supposing you to retain it, what are you but a clerk for life? And your prospects as a lawyer are good enough to encourage you to go on. Go on, and finish your studies; you are poor enough, but there are greater evils than poverty: live on no man's favor; what bread you do eat, let it be the bread of independence; pursue your profession, make yourself useful to your friends and a little formidable to your enemies, and you have nothing to fear.'"

Young Webster went home and passed another sleepless night. Then he borrowed some money, hired a sleigh, and started for Salisbury. When he reached his father's house, the pale old man said to him, "Well, Daniel, we have got that office for you."

"Yes, father," was the reply, "the gentlemen were very kind; I must go and thank them."

"They gave it to you without my saying a word about it."

"I must go and see Judge Farrar, and tell him I am much obliged to him."

"Daniel, Daniel," said he, at last, with a searching look, "don't you mean to take that office?"

"No, indeed, father," was the response, "I hope I can do much better than that. I mean to use my tongue in the courts, not my pen; to be an actor, not a register of other men's acts. I hope yet, sir, to astonish your honor in your own court by my professional attainments."

He looked half proud, half sorrowful, and said slowly, "Well, my son, your mother has always said you would come to something or nothing. She was not sure which; I think you are now about settling that doubt for her." He never spoke a word more upon the subject. The fifteen-hundred-dollar clerkship was gone forever, but Daniel had chosen the right road to fame and prosperity.

He returned finally to the quiet town of Boscawen, and, not willing to be separated from his father, began the life of a country lawyer. His practice brought not more than five or six hundred dollars a year, but it gave self-support. He had also time for study. "Study," he said, "is the grand requisite for a lawyer. Men may be born poets, and leap from their cradle painters. Nature may have made them musicians, and called on them only to exercise, and not to acquire, ability; but law is artificial. It is a human science, to be learned, not inspired. Let there be a genius for whom nature has done so much as apparently to have left nothing for application, yet, to make a lawyer, application must do as much as if nature had done nothing. The evil is that an accursed thirst for money violates everything… The love of fame is extinguished, every ardent wish for knowledge repressed; conscience put in jeopardy, and the best feelings of the heart indurated by the mean, money-catching, abominable practices which cover with disgrace a part of the modern practitioners of the law."

Webster's first speech at the bar was listened to by his proud and devoted father, who did not live to hear him a second time. He died in 1806, at sixty-seven, and was buried beneath a tall pine-tree on his own field. Daniel assumed his debts, and for ten years bore the burden, if that may be called a burden which we do willingly for love's sake.

The next year he removed to Portsmouth. He was now twenty-five, pale, slender, and of refined and apparently delicate organization. He had written considerable for the press, made several Fourth of July orations, and published a little pamphlet, "Considerations on the Embargo Laws."

In June, 1808, when he was twenty-six, he made the wisest choice of his life in his marriage to Grace Fletcher, daughter of Rev. Elijah Fletcher of Hopkinton. She was twenty-seven, a rare combination of intellect and sweetness, just the woman to inspire an educated man by her cultivated and sympathetic mind, and to rest him with her gentle and genial presence. She had a quiet dignity which won respect, and her manners were unaffected, frank, and winning. From the first time he saw her she looked "like an angel" to him, and such she ever remained to his vision.

And now began the happiest years of his life. The small, wooden house in which they lived grew into a palace, because love was there. His first child, little Grace, named for her mother, became the idol of his heart. Business increased and friends multiplied during the nine years he lived at Portsmouth. He was fortunate in having for an almost constant opponent in the law the renowned Jeremiah Mason, fourteen years his senior, and the acknowledged head of the legal profession in New Hampshire. Mr. Webster studied him closely. "He had a habit," said Webster, "of standing quite near to the jury, so near that he might have laid his finger on the foreman's nose; and then he talked to them in a plain conversational way, in short sentences, and using no word that was not level to the comprehension of the least educated man on the panel. This led me to examine my own style, and I set about reforming it altogether." Before this his style had been somewhat florid; afterward it was terse, simple, and graphic.

On July 4, 1812, Webster delivered an oration before the "Washington Benevolent Society," in which he stoutly opposed the war then being carried on with England. The address immediately passed through two editions, and led to his appointment as delegate to an assembly of the people of Rockingham County, to express disapproval of the war. The "Rockingham Memorial," which was presented to the President, was written by Mr. Webster, and showed a thorough knowledge of the condition of affairs, and an ardent devotion to the Union, even though the various sections of the country might differ in opinion. The result of this meeting was the sending of Mr. Webster to Congress, where he took his seat May 24, 1813. He was thirty-one; the poverty, the poor clothes in Dartmouth College, the burden of the father's debts had not kept him from success.

Once in Congress, it was but natural that his influence should be felt. He did not speak often, but when he did speak the House listened. He was placed on the committee on Foreign Relations, with Mr. Calhoun as chairman. He helped to repeal the Embargo Laws, spoke on the Tariff, showing that he was a Free Trader in principle, but favored Protection as far as expediency demanded it, and took strong grounds against the war of 1812. He urged the right and necessity of free speech on all questions. He said, "It is the ancient and undoubted prerogative of this people to canvas public measures and the merits of public men. It is a 'home-bred right,' a fireside privilege. It has ever been enjoyed in every house, cottage, and cabin in the nation… It is as undoubted as the right of breathing the air, or walking on the earth. Belonging to private life as a right, it belongs to public life as a duty; and it is the last duty which those whose representative I am shall find me to abandon."

He was active in that almost interminable discussion concerning a United States Bank. The first bank, chartered in 1791, had Hamilton for its defender, and Jefferson for its opponent. In 1811, the bank failed to obtain a renewal of its charter. During the war of 1812, the subject was again urged. The Jeffersonians were opposed to any bank; another party favored a bank which should help the government by heavy loans, and be relieved from paying its notes in specie; still another party, to which Webster belonged, favored a bank with reasonable capital, compelled to redeem its notes in specie, and at liberty to make loans or not to the government. On the subject of the currency he made some remarkable speeches, showing a knowledge of the subject perhaps unequalled since Hamilton.

The bank bill passed in 1816, shorn of some of its objectionable features. On April 26, Mr. Webster presented his resolutions requiring all dues to the government to be paid in coin, or in Treasury notes, or in notes of the Bank of the United States, and by a convincing speech aided in its adoption, thus rendering his country a signal service.

During this session of Congress, Webster received a challenge to a duel from John Randolph of Roanoke, and was brave enough to refuse, saying, "It is enough that I do not feel myself bound, at all times and under any circumstances, to accept from any man, who shall choose to risk his own life, an invitation of this sort."

The time had come now in Mr. Webster's life for a broader sphere; he decided to move to Boston. His law practice had never brought more than two thousand dollars a year, and he needed more than this for his growing family. Besides, his house at Portsmouth, costing him six thousand dollars, had been burned, his library and furniture destroyed, and he must begin the world anew.

The loss of property was small compared with another loss close at hand. Grace, the beautiful, precocious first-born, the sunshine of the home, died in her father's arms, smiling full in his face as she died. He wept like a child, and could never forget that parting look.

After settling in Boston, business flowed in upon him, until he earned twenty thousand dollars a year. He would work hard in the early morning hours, coming home tired from the courts in the afternoon. Says a friend, "After dinner, Mr. Webster would throw himself upon the sofa, and then was seen the truly electrical attraction of his character. Every person in the room was drawn immediately into his sphere. The children squeezing themselves into all possible places and postures upon the sofa, in order to be close to him; Mrs. Webster sitting by his side, and the friend or social visitor only too happy to join in the circle. All this was not from invitation to the children; he did nothing to amuse them, he told them no stories; it was the irresistible attraction of his character, the charm of his illumined countenance, from which beamed indulgence and kindness to every one of his family."

Among the celebrated cases which helped Mr. Webster's renown was the Dartmouth College case in 1817. The college was originally a charity school for the instruction of the Indians in the Christian religion, founded by Rev. Eleazer Wheelock. He solicited and obtained subscriptions in England, the Earl of Dartmouth being a generous giver. A charter was obtained from the Crown in 1769, appointing Dr. Wheelock president, and empowering him to name his successor, subject to the approval of the trustees. In 1815 a quarrel began between two opposite political and religious factions. The Legislature was applied to, which changed the name from college to university, enlarged the number of trustees, and otherwise modified the rights of the corporation under the charter from England. The new trustees took possession of the property. The old board brought action against the new, but the courts of New Hampshire decided that the acts of the Legislature were constitutional. The case was appealed to Washington, and on March 10, 1818, Mr. Webster made his famous speech of over four hours, proving that by the Constitution of the United States the charter of an institution is a contract which a State Legislature cannot annul.

In closing he said to the Chief Justice, "This, sir, is my case. It is the case, not merely of that humble institution, it is the case of every college in our land. It is more. It is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout our country – of all those great charities founded by the piety of our ancestors, to alleviate human misery and scatter blessings along the pathway of life. It is more! It is, in some sense, the case of every man among us who has property of which he may be stripped, for the question is simply this: Shall our State Legislatures be allowed to take that which is not their own, to turn it from its original use, and apply it to such ends or purposes as they in their discretion shall see fit? Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But, if you do so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our land!

"It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it – "

Here Mr. Webster broke down, overcome by the recollections of those early days of poverty, and the self-sacrifice of the dead father. The eyes of Chief Justice Marshall were suffused with tears, as were those of nearly all present. When Mr. Webster sat down, for some moments the silence was death-like, and then the people roused themselves as though awaking from a dream. Nearly seventy years after this, when the Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, Librarian of the Boston Public Library, gave his eloquent address at the dedication of Wilson Hall, the library building of Dartmouth College, he held in his hand the very copy of Blackstone from which Webster quoted in his great argument, with his autograph on the fly-leaf. Of Webster he said, "His imagination transformed the soulless body corporate – the fiction of the king's prerogative – into a living personality, the object of his filial devotion, the beloved mother whose protection called forth all his powers, and enkindled in his bosom a quenchless love."

Several years later, Webster won the great case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, which settled that the State of New York had no right, under the Constitution, to grant a monopoly of steam navigation, on its waters, to Fulton and Livingston.

He now took an active part in the revision of the Constitution of Massachusetts, helping to do away with the religious test, that a person holding office must declare his belief in the Christian religion. A believer himself, he was unwilling to force his views upon others. December 22, 1820, he delivered an oration at Plymouth, commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. It was a grand theme, and the theme had a master to handle it. He began simply, "Let us rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be thankful that we have lived to see the bright and happy breaking of the auspicious morn which commences the third century of the history of New England… Forever honored be this, the place of our fathers' refuge! Forever remembered the day which saw them, weary and distressed, broken in everything but spirit, poor in all but faith and courage, at last secure from the danger of wintry seas, and impressing this shore with the first footsteps of civilized man!"

Then the picture was sketched on a glowing canvas; – the noble Pilgrims; the progress of New England during the century; the grand government under which we live and develop, with the Christian religion for our comfort and our hope. In closing he said, "The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace through us their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas."

The people heard the oration as though entranced. Said Mr. Ticknor, a man of remarkable culture, "I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the gush of blood; for, after all, you must know that I am aware it is no connected and compacted whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments of burning eloquence, to which his whole manner gave tenfold force. When I came out I was almost afraid to come near to him. It seemed to me as if he was like the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire."

John Adams wrote him, "If there be an American who can read it without tears, I am not that American… Mr. Burke is no longer entitled to the praise – the most consummate orator of modern times… This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and ever."

From the day he delivered that oration, Mr. Webster was the leading orator of America. From that day he belonged not to Grace Webster alone, not to Massachusetts, not to one political party, but to the people of the United States. Five years after that, he delivered the address at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill monument. Who does not remember the impassioned words to the survivors of the Revolution, "Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault, the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death, – all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more… All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils, and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!

"But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example."

Who has not read that address delivered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, in commemoration of the lives and services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who died July 4, 1826. Who does not remember that imaginary speech of John Adams, "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends… Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die, – die colonists, – die slaves; – die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But, while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country."