The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1

What was not less harassing than this diversity was the uncertainty everywhere prevailing, how far the reputed rate of depreciation in any particular case might represent justly the real condition of a bank or set of banks. In other words, men were obliged to make and receive payments in a currency of which, at the time, the value was not certainly known to them, and which might vary as it was passing through their hands. The enormous injustice suffered by the citizens of different States, in being obliged to pay their dues at the custom-houses in as many different currencies as there were States, varying at least twenty-five per cent. between Boston and Richmond, need not be pointed out. For all these mischiefs the resolution of Mr. Webster afforded a remedy as efficient as simple; and what chiefly moves our astonishment at the present day is, that a measure of this kind, demanded by the first principles of finance, overlooked by the executive and its leading friends in Congress, should be left to be brought forward by one of its youngest members, and he not belonging to the supporters of the administration. But commanding talent and profound knowledge of the subjects to be treated vindicate to themselves a position in public bodies, which official relations can neither confer nor take away. It would not be easy to name a political xlvii measure, in the history of the government, which has accomplished its design with greater simplicity and directness; and that design one of paramount importance to the country, and coming home to the business of every individual.

In all the other public measures brought forward in this Congress for meeting the new conditions of the country, Mr. Webster bore an active part, but they furnish no topic requiring illustration. At the close of the first session, in August, 1816, he executed the project to which we have already alluded of removing to a wider professional field. After some hesitation he decided on Boston, in which and its vicinity he has ever since made his home. He had established friendly relations here at an early period of life. In no part of the Union was his national reputation more cordially recognized than in the metropolis of New England. He took at once the place in his profession which belonged to his commanding talent and legal eminence, and was welcomed into every circle of social life.

CHAPTER III

Professional Character particularly in Reference to Constitutional Law.—The Dartmouth College Case argued at Washington in 1818.—Mr. Ticknor’s Description of that Argument.—The Case of Gibbons and Ogden in 1824.—Mr. Justice Wayne’s Allusion to that Case in 1847.—The Case of Ogden and Saunders in 1827.—The Case of the Proprietors of the Charles River Bridge.—The Alabama Bank Case.—The Case relative to the Boundary between Massachusetts and Rhode Island.—The Girard Will Case.—The Case of the Constitution of Rhode Island.—General Remarks on Mr. Webster’s Practice in the Supreme Court of the United States.—Practice in the State Courts.—The Case of Goodridge,—and the Case of Knapp.

With Mr. Webster’s removal to Boston commenced a period of five or six years’ retirement from active political life, during which time, with a single exception which will be hereafter alluded to, he filled no public office, and devoted himself exclusively to the duties of his profession. It was accordingly within this period that his reputation as a lawyer was fixed and established. The promise of his youth, and the expectations of those who had known him as a student, were more than fulfilled. He took a position as a counsellor and an advocate, above which no one has ever risen in the country. A large share of the best business of New England passed into his hands; and the veterans of the Boston bar admitted him to an entire equality of standing, repute, and influence.

Besides the reputation which he acquired in the ordinary routine of practice, Mr. Webster, shortly after his removal to Boston, took the lead in establishing what might almost be called a new school of constitutional law. It fell to his lot to perform a prominent part in unfolding a most important class of constitutional doctrines, which, either because occasion had not drawn them forth, or the jurists of a former period had failed to deduce and apply them, had not yet grown into a system. It was reserved for Mr. Webster to distinguish himself before most, if not all, of his contemporaries, in this branch of his profession. It may be mentioned as a somewhat curious coincidence, that the case in which he made his first great effort in this direction arose in his native State, and concerned the College in which he had been educated.

In the months of June and December, 1816, the legislature of xlix New Hampshire passed acts altering the charter of Dartmouth College (of which the name was changed to Dartmouth University), enlarging the number of the trustees, and generally reorganizing the corporation. These acts, although passed without the consent and against the protest of the Trustees of the College, went into operation. The newly created body took possession of the corporate property, and assumed the administration of the institution. The old board were all named as members of the new corporation, but declined acting as such, and brought an action against the treasurer of the new board for the books of record, the original charter, the common seal, and other corporate property of the College.

The action was commenced in the Court of Common Pleas for Grafton County, in February, 1817, and carried immediately to the Superior Court, in May of the same year. The general issue was pleaded by the defendants and joined by the plaintiffs. The case turned upon the point, whether the acts of the legislature above referred to were binding upon the corporation without their assent, and not repugnant to the Constitution of the United States. It was first argued by Messrs. Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith for the plaintiffs, and by the Attorney-General of New Hampshire for the defendants; and subsequently by Messrs. Mason, Smith, and Webster for the plaintiffs, and the Attorney-General and Mr. L Bartlett for the defendants. At the November term it was decided by the Superior Court of New Hampshire, in an opinion delivered by Chief Justice Richardson, that the acts of the New Hampshire legislature were valid and constitutional. In giving his opinion on the case, the Chief Justice said: “The cause has been argued on both sides with uncommon learning and ability, and we have witnessed a display of talents and eloquence upon this occasion in the highest degree honorable to the profession of the law in this State.”[6 - 1 New Hampshire Reports, p. 113.]

The case thus decided in the Superior Court of New Hampshire in favor of the validity of the State laws, was carried by writ of error to the Supreme Court of the United States, where, on the 10th of March, 1818, it came on for argument before all the judges, Mr. Webster and Mr. (afterwards Judge) Hopkinson for the plaintiffs, and Mr. J. Holmes of Maine and the Attorney-General, l Wirt, for the defendants in error. This was perhaps the first occasion in this country on which a question precisely of this kind had come up, and it is stated that, when one of the court had run his eye cursorily over the record, he said that he did not see how any thing important could be urged by the plaintiffs in error.

It devolved upon Mr. Webster, as junior counsel, to open the case, and it is scarcely necessary to say to any one who has read the report of his argument, that, if such an impression as that just alluded to existed in the mind of any of the court, it must have been immediately dispelled. The ground was broadly taken, that the acts in question were not only against common right and the constitution of New Hampshire, but also, and this was the leading principle, against the provision of the Constitution of the United States which forbids the individual States from passing laws that impair the obligation of contracts. Under the first head, the entire English law relative to educational foundations was unfolded by Mr. Webster, and it was shown that colleges, unless otherwise specifically constituted by their charters, were private eleemosynary corporations, over whose property, members, and franchises the crown has no control, except by due process of law, for acts inconsistent with their charters. The whole learning of the subject was brought to bear with overwhelming weight on this point.

The second main point required to be less elaborately argued; namely, that such a charter is a contract which it is not competent for a State to annul. The argument throughout was pursued with a closeness and vigor which have been rarely witnessed in our courts. The topics were beyond the usual range of forensic investigation in this country. The constitutional principles sought to be applied were of commanding importance. Great public expectation was awakened by the novelty and magnitude of the case. The personal connection of Mr. Webster with Dartmouth College as the place of his education gave a fervor to his manner, which added, no doubt, to the effect of the reasoning. On this point Mr. Ticknor expresses himself as follows:—

“Mr. Webster’s argument is given in this volume [the first collection of his works], that is, we have there the technical outline; the dry skeleton of it. But those who heard him when it was originally delivered li still wonder how such dry bones could ever have lived with the power they there witnessed and felt. He opened his cause, as he always does, with perfect simplicity in the general statement of its facts, and then went on to unfold the topics of his argument in a lucid order, which made each position sustain every other. The logic and the law were rendered irresistible. But as he advanced, his heart warmed to the subject and the occasion. Thoughts and feelings that had grown old with his best affections rose unbidden to his lips. He remembered that the institution he was defending was the one where his own youth had been nurtured; and the moral tenderness and beauty this gave to the grandeur of his thoughts, the sort of religious sensibility it imparted to his urgent appeals and demands for the stern fulfilment of what law and justice required, wrought up the whole audience to an extraordinary state of excitement. Many betrayed strong agitation, many were dissolved in tears. Prominent among them was that eminent lawyer and statesman, Robert Goodloe Harper, who came to him when he resumed his seat, evincing emotions of the highest gratification. When he ceased to speak, there was a perceptible interval before any one was willing to break the silence; and when that vast crowd separated, not one person of the whole number doubted that the man who had that day so moved, astonished, and controlled them, had vindicated for himself a place at the side of the first jurists of the country.”[7 - American Review, Vol. IX. p. 434.]

The opinion of the court, unanimous; with the exception of Justice Duvall, was pronounced by Chief Justice Marshall in the term for 1819, declaring the acts of the legislature of New Hampshire to be unconstitutional and invalid, and reversing the opinion of the court below. By this opinion the law of the land in reference to collegiate charters was firmly established. Henceforward our colleges and universities and their trustees, unless provision to the contrary is made in their acts of incorporation, stand upon the broad basis of common right and justice; holding in like manner as individuals their property and franchises by a firm legal tenure, and not subject to control or interference on the part of the local legislatures on the vague ground that public institutions are at the mercy of the government. That such is the recognized law of the land is owing in no small degree to the ability with which the Dartmouth College case was argued by Mr. Webster. The battle fought and the victory gained in this case were sought and gained for every lii college and university, for every academy and school, in the United States, endowed with property or possessed of chartered rights. It ought to be mentioned, to the credit of the State of New Hampshire, that she readily acquiesced in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, and made no attempt to sustain her recent legislation.

This celebrated cause, argued with such success before the highest tribunal in the country, established Mr. Webster’s position in the profession. It placed him at once with Emmett and Pinkney and Wirt, in the front rank of the American bar, and, though considerably the youngest of this illustrious group, on an equality with the most distinguished of them. He was henceforward retained in almost every considerable cause argued at Washington. No counsel in the United States has probably been engaged in a larger portion of the business brought before that tribunal. While Mr. Webster as a politician and a statesman has performed an amount of intellectual labor, as is abundantly shown in these volumes, sufficient to form the sole occupation of an active life, there is no doubt that his arguments to the court and his addresses to the jury in important suits at law would, if they had been reported like his political speeches, have filled a much greater space.

It would exceed the limits of this sketch to allude in detail to all the cases argued by Mr. Webster in the Supreme Court of the United States; still less would it be practicable to trace him through his labors in the State courts. We can barely mention a few of the more considerable causes. The case of Gibbons and Ogden, in 1824, is one of great celebrity. In this case the grant by the State of New York to the assignees of Fulton, of an exclusive right to navigate the rivers, harbors, and bays of New York by steam, was called in question, and was decided to be unconstitutional, after having been maintained by all the tribunals of that great and respectable State. The decision of this great case turned upon the principle, that the grant of such a monopoly of the right to enter a portion of the navigable waters of the Union was an encroachment, by the State, upon the power “to regulate commerce,”–a power reserved by the Constitution to Congress, and in its nature exclusive. The cause was argued by Messrs. Webster and Wirt for the plaintiffs, and by Messrs. Oakley and Emmett liii for the defendants in error,—an array of talent worthy the magnitude of the interests at stake. The decision of the court was against the monopoly. Few cases in the annals of federal jurisprudence are of equal importance; none, perhaps, was ever argued with greater ability. In the course of his discussion, Mr. Webster said, with great felicity of illustration, that, by the establishment of the Constitution, the commerce of this whole country had become a unit, a form of expression used with approbation by Chief Justice Marshall in delivering the opinion of the court.

A very distinguished compliment was paid to Mr. Webster’s argument in this case, a quarter of a century after its delivery, by Mr. Justice Wayne of the Supreme Court of the United States. On the occasion of Mr. Webster’s visit to the South, in the spring of 1847, he was received with public honors, among other places, at Savannah. He was there addressed by Judge Wayne on behalf of his fellow-citizens. In the course of his remarks on that occasion, Judge Wayne alluded to Mr. Webster’s line of argument in this case in the following manner:—

“From one of your constitutional suggestions, every man in the land has been more or less benefited. We allude to it with the greater pleasure, because it was in a controversy begun by a Georgian in behalf of the constitutional rights of the citizen. When the late Mr. Thomas Gibbons determined to put to hazard a large part of his fortune in testing the constitutionality of the laws of New York limiting the navigation of the waters of that State to steamers belonging to a company, his own interest was not so much concerned as the right of every citizen to use a coasting license upon the waters of the United States, in whatever way their vessels might be propelled. It was a sound view of the law, but not broad enough for the occasion. It is not unlikely that the case would have been decided upon it, if you had not insisted that it should be put upon the broader constitutional ground of commerce and navigation. The court felt the application and force of your reasoning, and it made a decision releasing every creek, and river, lake, bay, and harbor in our country from the interference of monopolies, which had already provoked unfriendly legislation between some of the States, and which would have been as little favorable to the interest of Fulton, as they were unworthy his genius.”

The case of Ogden and Saunders, in 1827, brought in question liv the right of a State to pass an insolvent law. It was of course a case of high constitutional law, belonging to the same general class with those just mentioned, and relating to the limit of the powers of the several States, in reference to matters confided by the Constitution to the general government. This cause was argued by Mr. Clay and Mr. David B. Ogden of New York for the plaintiffs, and by Mr. Webster and Mr. Henry Wheaton for the defendants in error. In his argument in this case, Mr. Webster maintained the entire unconstitutionality of State bankrupt laws. This was a step in advance of the doctrines laid down by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Sturges and Crowninshield, nor did the court on the present occasion incline to go further than they had done in that case. They were divided in opinion, but a majority of the judges held, that, although it was not competent to a State to pass a law discharging a debtor from the obligation of payment, they might pass a law to discharge him from imprisonment on personal execution. The Chief Justice and Judge Story were the minority of the court, and the opinion of the Chief Justice sustained the principle of Mr. Webster’s argument, which is, in fact, usually regarded as not falling below his most successful forensic efforts. The manner in which he meets the argument in favor of a prospective State insolvent law, namely, that such a law cannot impair the obligation of a contract because it is a part of the contract, may be quoted as a specimen of the acutest dialectics brought in aid of the broadest views of constitutional law.

In the year 1836, Mr. Webster argued at Washington the great cause of the proprietors of Charles River Bridge. This well-remembered case was a suit in chancery commenced in the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, where the bill was dismissed by a decree pro forma, the members of that court being equally divided in opinion. A writ of error was taken to the Supreme Court of the United States, on the ground that the rights of the proprietors of Charles River Bridge under their charter had been violated by the legislature, in authorizing the erection of Warren Bridge. The cause was argued at Washington, in 1836, and, having been then held under advisement by the court for a year, was, upon difference of opinion among the judges, ordered to be again argued, which was done in lv 1837. This was another of the great constitutional cases argued by Mr. Webster before the Supreme Court of the United States. The abstract principles of the case were perhaps as clear as in those to which we have alluded; but there were practical difficulties, no doubt, in their application to restrain the right of a legislature to grant an act of incorporation, in the usual form, for the construction of a new bridge, on the ground of interference with some prior similar franchise. The opinion of the court, adverse to the complainants, was delivered by Chief Justice Taney. Mr. Justice McLean was clearly of opinion that the merits of the case were with the complainants, but that the Supreme Court of the United States had no jurisdiction over it. Mr. Justice Story dissented from the majority, and sustained the doctrines advanced by Mr. Webster in a very learned and powerfully reasoned opinion.

In 1839 the constitutional rights of the Bank of the United States (so called), which was incorporated by the State of Pennsylvania after the termination of the Congressional charter, were drawn in question by a case from the State of Alabama, in which the right of a corporation or a citizen in one State to perform any legal act in another was asserted by Mr. Webster, and his argument was sustained by the court. Not long afterwards the controversy between Massachusetts and Rhode Island relative to their boundary, a controversy running back to the earliest periods of their colonial history, was brought before the Supreme Court, at Washington, and argued by Mr. Webster for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

In 1844 the important case relative to the validity of Mr. Girard’s bequest of the greater part of his estate to the city of Philadelphia, for the foundation of a college for orphans, was argued by Mr. Webster before the Supreme Court, at Washington, for the heirs at law. One of the grounds on which the bequest was impeached by them was, the exclusion by the will of all ecclesiastics, missionaries, or ministers, of whatever sect, from all offices in the college, and even from admission within the premises as visitors. So impressive was Mr. Webster’s argument upon the importance of making provision for religious instruction in all institutions for education, that a meeting of the citizens of Washington belonging to different religious denominations was held, at which a resolution lvi was passed expressing the opinion entertained by the meeting of the great value of Mr. Webster’s argument, “in demonstrating the vital importance of Christianity to the success of our free institutions, and that the general diffusion of that argument among the people of the United States is a matter of deep public interest.” A committee of eight gentlemen of the different denominations of Christians in the city was appointed to wait upon Mr. Webster, and request him to prepare for the press the report of that portion of his argument in which this important topic is treated.

In the month of January, 1848, the great Rhode Island case was brought before the Supreme Court of the United States, and argued by Mr. Webster for the chartered government of the State, and against the insurrectionary government, to which an abortive attempt had been made to give the form of a constitution, by a pretended act of the popular will. The true principles of popular and constitutional government are explored with unsurpassed sagacity in this argument. Some copies of the report of it in a pamphlet form reached Europe during the memorable year of 1848, when the Continent was convulsed with revolutionary struggles from one end to the other. It was there regarded as a most seasonable and instructive commentary on the nature of constitutional obligations, and of the rights of the people to modify their institutions of government.

A large portion of the causes argued by Mr. Webster belong to the province of constitutional law, and have their origin in that partition of powers which exists between the State governments and the government of the United States, each clothed with sovereignty in its appropriate sphere, each subject to limitations resulting from its relations to the other, each possessing its legislative bodies, its judicial tribunals, its executive authorities, and consequently armed with the means of asserting its rights, and both combined into one great political system. In such a system it cannot but happen that questions of conflicting jurisdiction should arise. When we consider that the powers of these two orders of government are defined in written constitutions of recent date, and that all the direct precedents of administration must of necessity, at the oldest, be still more recent, we cannot but wonder lvii at the small number of disputed cases which have arisen, and at the sagacity, forethought, and practical wisdom of the founders of our government, who made such admirable provision for the harmonious operation of the system.

Still, however, it was impossible that the class of cases provided for by the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the United States should not present themselves, and no small portion of Mr. Webster’s forensic life has been devoted to their investigation. It is unnecessary to state that they are questions of an elevated character. They often involve the validity of the legislative acts and judicial decisions of governments substantially independent, as they may in fact the constitutionality of the acts of Congress itself. No court in England will allow any thing, not even a treaty with a foreign government, or the most undoubted principles of the law of nations, to be pleaded against an act of Parliament. The Supreme Court of the United States entertains the question not only of the constitutionality of the acts of the legislatures of States possessing most of the attributes of sovereignty, but also of the constitutionality of the acts of the national legislature, which possesses those attributes of sovereignty which are denied to the States. These circumstances give great dignity to its deliberations, and tend materially to elevate the character of a constitutional lawyer in the United States.[8 - “Crescit enim cum amplitudine rerum vis ingenii, nec quisquam claram et inlustrem orationem efficere potest, nisi qui causam parem invenit.” The dialogue De Oratoribus, § 37, usually printed with the works of Tacitus.] Professional training in England has not been deemed the best school of statesmanship; but it will be readily perceived, that in this country a great class of questions, and those of the highest importance, belong alike to the senate and the court. Every one must feel that, in the case of Mr. Webster, the lawyer and the statesman have contributed materially to form each other.

Before quite quitting this subject, it may be proper to allude to Mr. Webster’s professional labors of another class, in the ordinary State tribunals. Employed as counsel in all the most important cases during a long professional life, it is hardly necessary to say, that his investigations have extended to every department of the law, and that his speeches to the jury and arguments to the court have evinced a mastery of the learning lviii and a control of the logic belonging to it, which are in most cases to be attained only by the exclusive study and practice of a life. The jurist and the advocate are so mingled in Mr. Webster’s professional character, that it is not easy to say which predominates. His fervid spirit and glowing imagination place at his control all the resources of an overwhelming rhetoric, and make him all-powerful with a jury; while the ablest court is guided by his severe logic, and instructed by the choice which he lays before them of the most appropriate learning of the cases which he argues. It happens, unfortunately, that forensic efforts of this kind are rarely reported at length. A brief sketch of an important law argument finds a place in the history of the case, but distinguished counsel rarely have time or bestow the labor required to reproduce in writing an elaborate address either to court or jury. There is probably no species of intellectual labor of the highest order, which perishes for want of a contemporary record to the same extent as that which is daily exerted in the courts of law.

The present collection contains two speeches addressed to the jury by Mr. Webster in criminal trials. One was delivered in the case of Goodridge, and in defence of the persons whom he accused of having robbed him on the highway. This cause was tried in 1817, shortly after the establishment of Mr. Webster at Boston. Rarely has a case, in itself of no greater importance, produced a stronger impression of the ability of the counsel. The cross-examination of Goodridge, who pretended to have been robbed, and who had previously been considered a person of some degree of respectability, is still remembered at the bar of Massachusetts as terrific beyond example, and the speech to the jury in which his artfully contrived tale was stripped of its disguises may be studied as a model of this species of exposition.

Mr. Webster’s speech to the jury in the memorable case of John F. Knapp is of a higher interest. The great importance of this case, as well on account of the legal principles involved, as of the depth of the tragedy in real life with which it was connected, has given it a painful celebrity. A detailed history of the case and of the trial, from the pen of the late ingenious and learned Mr. Merrill, will be found prefixed to Mr. Webster’s speech, as contained in the fifth volume of this collection. The lix record of the causes célèbres of no country or age will furnish either a more thrilling narrative, or a forensic effort of greater ability. A passage on the power of conscience will arrest the attention of the reader. There is nothing in the language superior to it. It was unquestionably owing to the legal skill and moral courage with which the case was conducted by Mr. Webster, that one of the foulest crimes ever committed was brought to condign punishment; and the nicest refinements of the law of evidence were made the means of working out the most important practical results. But it is time to return to the chronological series of events.

CHAPTER IV

The Convention to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts.—John Adams a Delegate.—Mr. Webster’s Share in its Proceedings.—Speeches on Oaths of Office, Basis of Senatorial Representation, and Independence of the Judiciary.—Centennial Anniversary at Plymouth on the 22d of December, 1820.—Discourse delivered by Mr. Webster.—Bunker Hill Monument, and Address by Mr. Webster on the Laying of the Corner-Stone, 17th of June, 1825.—Discourse on the Completion of the Monument, 17th of June, 1843.—Simultaneous Decease of Adams and Jefferson on the 4th of July, 1826.—Eulogy by Mr. Webster in Faneuil Hall.—Address at the Laying of the Corner-Stone of the New Wing of the Capitol.—Remarks on the Patriotic Discourses of Mr. Webster, and on the Character of his Eloquence in Efforts of this Class.

In 1820, on the separation of Maine, a convention became necessary in Massachusetts to readjust the Senate; and the occasion was deemed a favorable one for a general revision of the constitution. The various towns in the Commonwealth were authorized by law to choose as many delegates as they were entitled to elect members to the House of Representatives; and a body was constituted containing much of the talent, political experience, and weight of character of the State. Mr. Webster was chosen one of the delegates from Boston; and, with the exception of a few days’ service, two or three years afterwards, in the Massachusetts House of Representatives;[9 - Mr. Webster makes the following playful allusion to this circumstance in a speech at a public dinner in Syracuse (New York), in the month of May of the present year:—] this is the only occasion on which he ever filled any political office under the State government either of Massachusetts or New Hampshire.

The venerable John Adams, second President of the United States, was a delegate to this convention from Quincy. He was the author of the original draft of the State constitution in 1780, and although his advanced age (he was now eighty-six lxi years old) made it impossible for him to take an active part in the proceedings of the convention, he received the honor of a unanimous election as president. He declined the appointment; and Chief Justice Parker was chosen in his place.

The convention of 1820 was no doubt as respectable a political body as ever assembled in Massachusetts; and it is no more than justice to Mr. Webster to say, that, although he had been but a few years a citizen of the Commonwealth, and was personally a stranger to most of his associates, he was among the most efficient members of the body. He was named chairman of the committee to whom the important subject of oaths and qualifications for office was referred, and of the special committee on that chapter of the constitution which relates to the “University at Cambridge.” Besides taking a leading part in the discussion of most of the important subjects which were agitated in the convention, he was the authority most deferred to on questions of order, and in that way exercised a steady and powerful influence over the general course of its proceedings. It is believed that on this occasion the practice of considering business in committee of the whole body was for the first time adopted in Massachusetts; that mode of procedure never having obtained in the legislature of the State. The dignified and efficient manner in which the duties of the chair were performed by Mr. Webster, whenever he was called to occupy it, was matter of general remark. It has often been a subject of regret with those who witnessed the uncommon aptitude evinced by him on these, as on similar occasions at Washington, for the discharge of the duties of presiding officer of a deliberative assembly, that he was never, during his Congressional career, called to the important office of Speaker of the House of Representatives. Considering the relation of the House to the political condition of the country, there is no position under the government which bears more directly upon the general character of the public counsels. The place has occasionally, both in former times and recently, been filled with great ability; but it has more frequently happened that speakers have been chosen from considerations of political expediency, and without regard to personal qualifications and fitness for the office. The effect lxii has been highly prejudicial to the tone of the House, and its consequent estimation in the country. It has frequently happened that the decisions of the Speaker, as such, have commanded no respect. An appeal has been taken from them almost as a matter of course. The state of things is very different in the body most nearly resembling the houses of Congress. Such a thing as an appeal from the decision of the Speaker on a point of order is hardly known in the British House of Commons, and the disposition of all parties to acquiesce in, if not to support, the decisions of the chair, is one of the characteristic features of that assembly.

The proceedings of the Massachusetts convention were ably reported, from day to day, in the Boston Daily Advertiser; but a contemporary report usually implies much abridgment of the speeches. Much that was said by Mr. Webster, as by other prominent speakers, appeared but in a condensed form; and it is believed, that, even when reported at greatest length and with most care, it was without the advantage of personal revision by the speakers. The third volume of the present collection contains Mr. Webster’s remarks on those provisions of the constitution which related to oaths of office and formed a kind of religious test, which Mr. Webster was disposed to abolish; a speech upon the basis of senatorial representation; and another upon the independence of the judiciary.

In the speech on the basis of the Senate, Mr. Webster defended the principle, which was incorporated into the original constitution, and is recognized by the liberal writers of greatest authority on government, that due regard should be had to property in establishing a basis of representation. He showed the connection between the security of republican liberty and this principle. He first called attention in this country to the fact, that this important principle was originally developed in Harrington’s Oceana, a work much studied by our Revolutionary fathers. The practical consequence which Mr. Webster deduced from the principle was, that constitutional and legal provision ought to be made to produce the utmost possible diffusion and equality of property.

It is a melancholy instance of the injustice of party, that these views of Mr. Webster, which contain the philosophy of constitutional republicanism as distinct from a mere democracy of lxiii numbers, have, even down to the present day, served as the basis of a charge against him of anti-popular principles. Having observed in the speech referred to, “that it would seem to be the part of political wisdom to found government on property, and to establish such a distribution of property by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to interest the great majority of society in the protection of the government,” the former part of this sentence has often been quoted as a substantive rule in favor of a moneyed aristocracy, and the latter uncandidly suppressed. It is hardly necessary to observe, that the point at issue was the constitution of the senatorial districts on the basis of the valuation; and that it was never proposed by Mr. Webster, or by any body else, to apply the principle to individuals. The poor man in the rich senatorial district possessed as much political power as his wealthy neighbor. The principle, in fact, is but another form of that which gave the first impulse to the American Revolution, namely, that representation and taxation ought to go hand in hand.

While the Massachusetts convention was in session, Mr. Webster appeared before the public in another department of intellectual effort, and with the most distinguished success. It is hazardous for a person of great professional eminence to venture out of his sphere; perhaps the experiment has never before been so triumphantly made. In 1820, Mr. Webster was invited by the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth to deliver a discourse on the great anniversary of New England, the ever-memorable 22d of December. Several circumstances contributed on this occasion to the interest of the day. The peaceful surrender by Massachusetts of a portion of her territory, greatly exceeding in magnitude that which she retained, in order to form the new State of Maine, was a pleasing exemplification of that prosperous multiplication of independent commonwealths within the limits of the Union, which forms one of the most distinctive features in our history. It was as much an alienation of territory from the local jurisdiction of Massachusetts, as if it had been ceded to Great Britain, and yet the alienation was cordially made. At this very time a controversy existed between the United States and England, relative to the conflicting title of the two governments to a very lxiv small portion, and that the least valuable part, of the same territory, which, after the aggravations and irritations of forty years of controversy, was in 1842 adjusted by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton, at a moment when war seemed all but inevitable. In any other country or age of the world, Maine could have been severed from Massachusetts only by a bloody revolution. Their amicable separation by mutual consent, although neither the first nor the second similar event in the United States, was still an occurrence which carried back the reflections of thoughtful men to the cradle of New England.

These reflections gathered interest from the convention then in session. It was impossible not to feel with unusual force the contrast between the circumstances under which the first simple compact of government, the germ of the American constitutions, was drawn up on board the Mayflower, and those under which the assembled experience, wisdom, and patriotism of the State were now engaged in reorganizing the government. Several of the topics which presented themselves to Mr. Webster’s mind, and were discussed by him at Plymouth, had entered into the debates of the convention a few days before. Still more, the close of the second century from the landing of the Fathers, with all its mighty series of events in the social, political, and moral world, gave the highest interest to the occasion. Six New England generations were to pass in review. It was an anniversary which could be celebrated nowhere else as it could be at Plymouth. It was such an anniversary, with its store of traditions, comparisons, and anticipations, as none then living could witness again. The Pilgrim Society gave utterance to the unanimous feeling of the community, in calling upon Mr. Webster to speak for the whole people of New England, at home and abroad, on this great occasion.

The discourse delivered by him in pursuance of their invitation, in some respects the most remarkable of his performances, begins the series of his works contained in the present collection. The felicity and spirit with which its descriptive portions are executed; the affecting tribute which it pays to the memory of the Pilgrims; the moving picture of their sufferings on both sides of the water; the masterly exposition and analysis of those institutions to which the prosperity of New England under Providence is owing; the eloquent inculcation of those lxv great principles of republicanism on which our American commonwealths are founded; the instructive survey of the past, the sublime anticipations of the future of America,—have long since given this discourse a classical celebrity. Several of its soul-stirring passages have become as household words throughout the country. They are among the most favorite of the extracts contained in the school-books. An entire generation of young men have derived from this noble performance some of their first lessons in the true principles of American republicanism. It obtained at once a wide circulation throughout the country, and gave to Mr. Webster a position among the popular writers and speakers of the United States scarcely below that which he had already attained as a lawyer and a statesman. It is doubtful whether any extra-professional literary effort by a public man has attained equal celebrity.

In the course of a few years, when the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument was to be laid, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, the general expectation again pointed to Mr. Webster as the orator of the day. This, too, was a great national and patriotic anniversary. For the first time, and after the lapse of a half-century, the commencement of the war of the American Revolution was to be publicly celebrated under novel, significant, and highly affecting circumstances. Fifty years had extinguished all the unkindly associations of the day, and raised it from the narrow sphere of local history to a high place in the annals of the world. A great confederacy had sprung from the blood of Bunker Hill. This was too important an event in the history of the world to be surrendered to hostile and party feeling. No friend of representative government in England had reason to deplore the foundation of the American republics. No one can doubt that the development of the representative principle in this country has contributed greatly to promote the cause of Parliamentary reform in Great Britain. Other considerations gave great interest to the festival of the 17th of June, 1825. Fifty years of national life, fortune, and experience, not exhibiting in their detail an unvarying series of prosperity, (for it was fifty years in the history, not of angels, but of men,) but assuredly not surpassed in the grand aggregate by any half-century in the annals of the world, lxvi were now brought to a close. Vast as the contrast was in the condition of the country at the beginning and close of the period, there were still living venerable men who had acted prominent and efficient parts in the opening scenes of the drama. Men who had shared the perils of 1775 shared the triumph of the jubilee. More than a hundred of the heroes of the battle were among the joyous participators in this great festival. Not the least affecting incident of the celebration was the presence of Lafayette, who had hastened from his more than royal progress through the Union to take a part in the ceremonial.

It is unnecessary to say, that on such an occasion, with all these circumstances addressed to the imaginations and the thoughts of men, in the presence of a vast multitude of the intelligent population of Massachusetts and the other New England States, with no inconsiderable attendance of kindred and descendants from every part of the Union, an address from such an orator as Mr. Webster, on such a platform, on such a theme, in the flower of his age and the maturity of his faculties, discoursing upon an occasion of transcendent interest, and kindling with the enthusiasm of the day and the spot, may well be regarded as an intellectual treat of the highest order. Happy the eyes that saw that most glorious gathering! Happy the ears that heard the heart-stirring strain!

Scarcely inferior in interest was the anniversary celebration, when the Bunker Hill Monument was finally completed, in 1843, and Mr. Webster again consented to address the immense multitude which the ceremonial could not fail to bring together. In addition to all the other sources of public interest belonging to the occasion, the completion itself of the structure was one to which the community attached great importance. It had been an object steadily pursued, under circumstances of considerable discouragement, by a large number of liberal and patriotic individuals, for nearly a quarter of a century. The great work was now finished; and the most important event in the history of New England was henceforward commemorated by a monument destined, in all human probability, to last as long as any work erected by the hands of man. The thrill of admiration which ran through the assembled thousands, when, at the commencement of his discourse on that occasion, Mr. Webster apostrophized the monument lxvii itself as the mute orator of the day, has been spoken of by those who had the good fortune to be present as an emotion beyond the power of language to describe. The gesture, the look, the tone of the speaker, as he turned to the majestic shaft, seemed to invest it with a mysterious life; and men held their breath as if a solemn voice was about to come down from its towering summit. This address does not appear to have had the advantage possessed by those of Plymouth in 1820, and of Bunker Hill in 1825, in having been written out for the press by Mr. Webster. It seems to have been prepared for publication from the reporter’s notes, with some hasty revision, perhaps, by the author.

On the 4th of July, 1826, occurred the extraordinary coincidence of the deaths of Adams and Jefferson, within a few hours of each other, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; an event with which they were both so closely connected, as members of the committee by which the ever-memorable state paper was prepared and brought into the Continental Congress. The public mind was already predisposed for patriotic emotions and sentiments of every kind by many conspiring causes. The recency of the Revolutionary contest, sufficiently illustrated by the fact that many of those engaged in it were still alive and had been the subjects of liberal provision by Congress; the complete, though temporary, fusion of parties, producing for a few years a political lull, never witnessed to the same extent before or since; the close of the half-century from the commencement of the Revolutionary War, and the commemoration of its early conflicts on many of the spots where they occurred; the foundation of the Bunker Hill Monument, and of a similar work on a smaller scale at Concord; the visit of Lafayette; abroad, the varying scenes of the Greek revolution and the popular movement in many other parts of Europe,—united in exciting the public mind in this country. They kindled to new fervor the susceptible and impulsive American temperament. The simultaneous decease of the illustrious patriarchs of the Revolution, under these circumstances of coincidence, fell upon a community already prepared to be deeply affected. It touched a tender chord, which vibrated from one end of the Union to the other. The affecting event was noticed throughout the country. Cities and States lxviii vied with each other in demonstrations of respect for the memory of the departed. The heart of the country poured itself forth in one general utterance of reverential feeling. Nowhere was the wonderful event noticed with greater earnestness and solemnity of public sentiment than in Boston. Faneuil Hall was shrouded in black. Perhaps for the first time since its erection an organ was placed in the gallery, and a sublime funeral service was performed. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the effect of preparations like these upon an intelligent audience, assembled under highly wrought feeling. They produced a tone of mind in unison with the magnificent effort of thought which was to follow.

It has, perhaps, never been the fortune of an orator to treat a subject in all respects so extraordinary as that which called forth the eulogy on Adams and Jefferson; a subject in which the characters commemorated, the field of action, the magnitude of the events, and the peculiar personal relations, were so important and unusual. Certainly it is not extravagant to add, that no similar effort of oratory was ever more completely successful. The speech ascribed to John Adams in the Continental Congress, on the subject of declaring the independence of the Colonies,—a speech of which the topics of course present themselves on the most superficial consideration of the subject, but of which a few hints only of what was actually said are supplied by the letters and diaries of Mr. Adams,—is not excelled by any thing of the kind in our language. Few things have taken so strong a hold of the public mind. It thrills and delights alike the student of history, who recognizes it at once as the creation of the orator, and the common reader, who takes it to be the composition, not of Mr. Webster, but of Mr. Adams. From the time the eulogy was delivered to the present day, the inquiry has been often made and repeated, sometimes even in letters addressed to Mr. Webster himself, whether this exquisite appeal is his or Mr. Adams’s. An answer to a letter of this kind will be found appended to the eulogy in the present edition.

These discourses, with the exception of the second Bunker Hill Address, were delivered within about five years of each other; the first on the 22d of December, 1820, the last on the 2d of August, 1826. With the exception named, Mr. Webster lxix has excused himself from the delivery of public addresses of this class, though continually invited from almost every part of the country and upon occasions of every kind. Within the last twelvemonth, however, he has yielded himself to the peculiar and urgent condition of public affairs, and has addressed his fellow-citizens on several occasions not immediately connected with senatorial or professional duty, and with the power and felicity which mark his earlier efforts. The most remarkable of these recent addresses is his speech delivered at Washington on the 4th of July, 1851, at the ceremonial of the laying of the corner-stone of the addition to the Capitol. This ceremonial, itself of no ordinary interest, and the aspect of public affairs under which it was performed, gave a peculiar fervor and solemnity to Mr. Webster’s treatment of the subject. Never, perhaps, were the principles to which the great day is consecrated unfolded in a few paragraphs with greater precision and comprehensiveness; or the auspicious influence of these principles on the progress of the country more happily set forth. The contrast between the United States of 1793, when the corner-stone of the original Capitol was laid by President Washington, and the United States of 1851, when this enlargement became necessary, is brought out with great skill and discrimination. The appeal to the Southern States, whether the government under which the Union has grown and prospered is a blessing or a curse to the country, is a burst of the highest eloquence. The allusion and apostrophe to Washington will be rehearsed by the generous youth of America as long as the English language is spoken on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.

This great oration, perhaps not premeditated so carefully, as far as the mere language is concerned, as those of an earlier date with which we have classed it, is not inferior to either of them in the essentials of patriotic eloquence. It belongs, in common with them, to a species of oratory neither forensic, nor parliamentary, nor academical; and which might perhaps conveniently enough be described by the epithet which we have just applied to it,—the patriotic. These addresses are strongly discriminated from the forensic and the parliamentary class of speeches, in being from the nature of the case more elaborately prepared. The public taste in a highly cultivated community would not admit, in a performance of this kind, those marks of lxx extemporaneous execution, which it not only tolerates, but admires, in the unpremeditated efforts of the senate and the bar. The latter shines to greatest advantage in happy impromptu strokes, whether of illustration or argument; the former admits, and therefore demands, the graceful finish of a mature preparation.[10 - “It has so happened that all the public services which I have rendered in the world, in my day and generation, have been connected with the general government. I think I ought to make an exception. I was ten days a member of the Massachusetts legislature, and I turned my thoughts to the search for some good object in which I could be useful in that position; and, after much reflection, I introduced a bill which, with the general consent of both houses of the Massachusetts legislature, passed into a law, and is now a law of the State, which enacts that no man in the State shall catch trout in any other manner than in the old way, with an ordinary hook and line.”The leading ideas in this and the following paragraph may be found in a review of Mr. Webster’s Speeches, in the North American Review, Vol. XLI. p. 241, written by the author of this Memoir.]

It is not, indeed, to be supposed, that an orator like Mr. Webster is slavishly tied down, on any occasion, to his manuscript notes, or to a memoriter repetition of their contents. It may be presumed that in many cases the noblest and the boldest flights, the last and warmest tints thrown upon the canvas, in discourses of this kind, were the unpremeditated inspiration of the moment of delivery. The opposite view would be absurd, because it would imply that the mind, under the high excitement of delivery, was less fertile and creative than in the repose of the closet. A speaker could not, if he attempted it, anticipate in his study the earnestness and fervor of spirit induced by actual contact with the audience; he could not by any possibility forestall the sympathetic influence upon his imagination and intellect of the listening and applauding throng. However severe the method required by the nature of the occasion, or dictated by his own taste, a speaker like Mr. Webster will not often confine himself “to pouring out fervors a week old.”

The orator who would do justice to a great theme or a great occasion must thoroughly study and understand the subject; he must accurately, and if possible minutely, digest in writing beforehand the substance, and even the form, of his address; otherwise, though he may speak ably, he will be apt not to make in all respects an able speech. He must entirely possess himself beforehand of the main things which he wishes to say, and then throw himself upon the excitement of the moment and the sympathy of the audience. In those portions of his discourse which are didactic or narrative, he will not be likely to wander, in any direction, far from his notes; although even in those portions new facts, illustrations, and suggestions will be apt to spring up before him as he proceeds. But when the topic rises, when the mind kindles from within, and the strain becomes loftier, or lxxi bolder, or more pathetic, when the sacred fountain of tears is ready to overflow, and audience and speaker are moved by one kindred sympathetic passion, then the thick-coming fancies cannot be kept down, the storehouse of the memory is unlocked, images start up from the slumber of years, and all that the orator has seen, read, heard, or felt returns in distinct shape and vivid colors. The cold and premeditated text will no longer suffice for the glowing thought. The stately, balanced phrase gives place to some abrupt, graphic expression, that rushes unbidden to his lips. The unforeseen incident or locality furnishes an apt and speaking image; and the discourse instinctively transposes itself into a higher key.

Many illustrations of these remarks may be found in the following volumes. We may refer particularly to the address to the survivors of the Revolution and the apostrophe to Warren in the first discourse on Bunker Hill. These were topics too obvious and essential, in an address on laying the corner-stone of the monument, to have been omitted in the orator’s notes prepared beforehand. But no one will think that the entire apostrophe to Warren, as it stands in the reported speech, was elaborated in the closet and committed to memory. In fact there is a slight grammatical inaccuracy, caused by passing from the third person to the second in the same sentence, which is at once the natural consequence and the proof of an unpremeditated expansion or elevation of the preconceived idea. We see the process. When the sentence commenced, “But, ah! him!” it was evidently in the mind of the orator to close it by saying, “How shall I speak of him?” But in the progress of the sentence, forgetful, unconscious, of the grammatical form, but melting with the thought, beholding, as he stood upon the spot where the hero fell, his beloved and beautiful image rising from the ground, he can no longer speak of him. Willing subject of his own witchery, he clothes his conception with sensible forms, and speaks to the glorious being whom he has called back to life. He no longer attempts to discourse of Warren to the audience, but passing, after a few intervening clauses, from the third person to the second, he exclaims, “How shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish, but thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail!”

CHAPTER V

Election to Congress from Boston.—State of Parties.—Meeting of the Eighteenth Congress.—Mr. Webster’s Resolution and Speech in favor of the Greeks.—Argument in the Supreme Court in the Case of Gibbons and Ogden.—Circumstances under which it was made.—Speech on the Tariff Law of 1824.—A complete Revision of the Law for the Punishment of Crimes against the United States reported by Mr. Webster, and enacted.—The Election of Mr. Adams as President of the United States.—Meeting of the Nineteenth Congress, and State of Parties.—Congress of Panama, and Mr. Webster’s Speech on that Subject.—Election as a Senator of the United States.—Revision of the Tariff Law by the Twentieth Congress.—Embarrassments of the Question.—Mr. Webster’s Course and Speech on this Subject.