Homes of American Statesmen; With Anecdotical, Personal, and Descriptive Sketches

In 1837, Mr. Wheaton was raised by President Van Buren to the rank of Minister Plenipotentiary and Envoy Extraordinary; and we cannot forbear remarking, that after the opposition which – although never a violent party man – he had in previous years shown Mr. Van Buren, it is most honorable to the latter, that no feeling of rancor or pique, withheld him from making a nomination which he felt the public services of his former opponent to deserve.

In 1836, he published, in England and in the United States, his "Elements of International Law," and in 1846 republished it in this country with numerous additions. In 1841 he wrote in French, "Histoire du Progrès du Droit des Gens depuis la paix de Westphalie," which obtained a mention honorable from the French Institute. This work was published in French at Leipsic, 1844, and afterwards in New-York, under the title of "History of the Law of Nations." Competent judges have spoken of it as the best work of the kind ever written; Mr. Reddie and Mr. Manning in Great Britain, Baron Gagern in Germany, and the enlightened and accomplished Minister of the King of Sardinia, Marquis d'Azeglio, have all awarded high praise to it. By diplomatists, it is considered an invaluable book of reference; by British statesmen, it has several times been quoted in Parliament, and there can be no exaggeration in saying, that it has entitled the author to a lasting reputation in the Old World.

In 1840, Mr. Wheaton had the misfortune to lose his eldest son, a lad of great promise, who died after a few days' illness in Paris, where he was at school. From that moment, all the father's hopes centred in Robert, his only remaining son. Of the latter, this is not the place to speak fully; but we cannot forbear to say, that he lived long enough to realize the fondest anticipations of his parents, and that his early death, at the age of twenty-five years, will ever be a source of regret to all who knew him. He died on the 9th of October, 1851, only three years after his father.

In 1843, he was made a corresponding member of the French Institute, in the section of Moral and Political Sciences. This nomination increased the pleasure he felt in visiting Paris, which he did, whenever his official duties would permit. In the literary and political circles of that great capital, he found the stimulus which every mind like his requires, and of which, he felt the want in Berlin, where men of letters and savans do not mix in the court-circles, which his official position compelled him frequently to attend. He knew most of the eminent statesmen and politicians of France; he was particularly well acquainted with M. Guizot, for whose character and talents he entertained the highest respect, and with M. Thiers, the charm of whose conversation he admired no less than his works, He also enjoyed the opportunity he had in Paris of meeting his countrymen, of whom comparatively few visited Berlin. Nor did he neglect when there, to transmit to Government such information respecting the general state of Europe, as his long residence abroad, and his relations with the leading men in several of its countries, enabled him to collect. In the ten years during which his mission to Berlin lasted, scarcely a week elapsed without his addressing a dispatch to Government. These dispatches are extremely interesting, both from the variety and extent of information they contain concerning the political and commercial state of Prussia, and the picture they present of Europe and of European governments, and, if ever published, will form a valuable addition to the history of American and European diplomacy.

In many respects, Mr. Wheaton was peculiarly well qualified for diplomatic life. His knowledge of international law, the soundness of his judgment, the calmness and impartiality with which he could look at the different sides of a question, his gentle and forbearing disposition, his amiable and conciliating manners, were all in his favor. To these advantages, he added the purest integrity, and the highest sense of the duties and responsibilities attached to the profession he so long followed. In the speech made at the public dinner offered him in New-York, on his return to his native country after an absence of twenty years, he said, and this was the true expression of his feelings on the subject: "You will excuse me for remarking that the mission of a diplomatic agent is, or ought to be, a mission of peace and conciliation; and that nothing can be further removed from its true nature and dignity, than intrigue, craft, and duplicity; qualities too often, but in my opinion, erroneously, attributed to the diplomatic character. At least, it may I believe be confidently asserted, that the ablest public ministers, and those who have most effectually advanced the honor and interest of their country, have been those who were distinguished for frankness, directness, and a strict regard to truth."

The amount of business which devolved on him during his mission to Berlin, independent of the negotiations for a commercial treaty with the German Customs-Union or Zollverein, can hardly be estimated by reading his dispatches only. Not a week elapsed without his receiving letters from different parts of Germany and the United States, asking for advice with regard to emigration, or to the disposition of property left by friends in America or in Germany, and all requiring immediate attention. But notwithstanding these demands upon his time, he did not neglect the pursuits of literature. In 1838 he published, jointly with Dr. Crichton, the volumes entitled "Scandinavia," which form a portion of the Edinburgh Family Library; and in 1842, and the succeeding years, wrote a number of interesting letters addressed to the National Institute at Washington, which were published in the columns of the National Intelligencer.

In 1844, he was named Member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and we must not omit to mention, that he was the only foreign diplomat to whom the honor had then been awarded. With Raumer and Ranke, with Ritter, the celebrated geographer, Encke, the astronomer, he was of course acquainted; Savigny, Gans, and Eichorn, he knew well; and with Alexander von Humboldt he was on the most friendly and familiar terms. Count Raczynski, whose work on "Modern Art," has made his name known in this country, and whose fine gallery is to amateurs of painting one of the chief objects of interest in Berlin, was also his intimate friend. With Bunsen, one of the most agreeable as well as intellectual men in Germany, whose diplomatic duties kept him absent from Berlin, he passed many delightful hours in Switzerland, and in London. All his colleagues in Berlin met him on the most friendly terms; but the Russian, French and English ministers were those whose company he most enjoyed, and who perhaps entertained for him the most cordial friendship. The two latter gave him their entire confidence, often showing him their dispatches, and freely discussing with him the interests of their respective governments.

It was in the spring of 1844, that the negotiations with the Zollverein, with which Mr. Wheaton had been charged, and which the various interests of the nineteen different states which it then included, had protracted, drew to a close. On the 25th of March he signed a convention with Baron Bulow, the Prussian Minister of Foreign Affairs, of whose enlightened and liberal views he always spoke in high terms. This treaty, to the accomplishment of which he had devoted all his energies during several years, and which he fondly hoped would prove satisfactory to Government and the country, was rejected by the Senate. It is hardly necessary to say, that he felt this disappointment deeply.

In 1846, he was recalled by President Polk, and on the 22d July had his farewell audience of the King of Prussia, by whom he had always been treated with marked distinction and courtesy. He went to Paris to pass the ensuing winter, during which he read to the Academy of Sciences a paper on the Schleswig-Holstein question, which is still unpublished. In May, 1847, he returned to his native land. A public dinner, to which we have already alluded, was given him in New-York, where so much of his early life had been spent, and where he had first distinguished himself; a dinner was also offered him in Philadelphia, but this, circumstances compelled him to decline. The city of Providence requested him to sit for his portrait, to be placed in the hall of the City Council, "as a memorial of one who shed so much honor on the place of his nativity." It is interesting to mark the contrast between this portrait, which was painted by Healy, and one painted by Jarvis nearly thirty years before. Though the countenance has lost something of the animation of youth, and the eyes have no longer the fire which flashes from the portrait of Jarvis, the head has gained in intellectual expression, and the brow wears that air of thoughtful repose, the mouth that pleasant smile, familiar to those who knew him in his later years.

In September, 1847, he delivered an address in Providence, before the Phi Beta Kappa Society, the subject of which was the Progress and Prospects of Germany. This was the last public occasion on which his voice was heard. The chair of International Law at Harvard University, to which he had been called, on his return home, he never lived to fill. His health gradually failed, and on the 11th of March, 1848, he breathed his last.

WEBSTER

What justice can be done "in an half-hour of words, to fifty years of great deeds on high places." The most meagre epitome of Daniel Webster's career, can not be compressed into the few pages allotted him in this book. Foremost, in the highest spheres of intellectual exertion, as a lawyer, orator and statesman – great in all these, yet greater as a man – how can his character, even in outline, be sketched by an unskilled pencil, on so small a canvas? High as were his stations, and severe as were his labors, they were not high nor severe enough, to exhaust his force, or exhibit his full proportions, but while meeting and mastering all, it was still manifest, that he had powers in reserve, superior to greater tasks than were ever imposed. At the bar, the puzzles of jurisprudence yielded too readily to his analysis. In Congress, but one question only ever wrung his withers or strained his strength. He shook off the perplexities of diplomacy, like dew-drops from his mane; too great for party, too great for sycophancy, too great to be truly appreciated, the exalted position to which he aspired, would have added no new lustre to his name, no additional guarantee of its immortality. There was no niche in our temple, vast enough for his colossal image.

Consider too, the extent and profundity of his opinions, during the half-century of his public life. On all questions of our foreign and domestic policy, on all the important epochs of our history, on everything respecting the origin, growth, commerce, peace and prosperity of this union of states, "everywhere the philosophical and patriotic statesman and thinker, will find that he has been before him, lighting the way, sounding the abyss. His weighty language, his sagacious warnings, his great maxims of empire, will be raised to view and live to be deciphered, when the final catastrophe shall lift the granite foundation in fragments from its bed." Merely to review the record of these opinions, his public speeches, historical discourses, and state papers would be to write the civil and constitutional history of the country since the war of 1812.

Assaying none of these ambitious flights, and bearing in mind the title of this book, we shall confine ourselves to the humble task of collating from the fragmentary reminiscences of personal friends, and from his own autobiographical allusions, a brief account of the homes and home life of Webster.[21 - We have consulted principally the "Memorials of Daniel Webster," published by the Appletons, containing the letters of Gen. Lyman, and the eulogies of Everett, Choate and Hildreth, all enjoying the precious favor of his personal intimacy. The reminiscences of Mr. Lanman, his private secretary, and Everett's life prefixed to the complete edition of his works, are our authority for many of the following details.]

There is a "vulgar error," which needs no Sir Thomas Browne to refute, that the possession of great intellectual endowments, is incompatible with the growth and development of the affections. During his entire career Mr. Webster suffered from this misconception. When he refused to adopt any of the arts of popular adulation; when he manifested his real respect for the people, by addressing their understandings, rather than by cajoling their weaknesses; when, rapt in his own meditations, he forgot to bow, to smile, to flatter, and bandy unmeaning compliment; when the mean stood abashed before his nobleness, and the weak before his strength, disappointed self-conceit, invariably turned from his presence, with the sneering remark, "Webster has no soul."

Death strips off all disguises. Calumny is silent over the graves of the great. It was not, until he was removed beyond the reach of party warfare and interested depreciation, it was not, until the veil that hid his true lineaments, was drawn aside, that Mr. Webster's inner life, and social relations, were revealed to his countrymen, and they began to discover, that underneath the giant's brain, there was a giant heart. The disclosures of those who enjoyed his familiarity and confidence, have now placed it beyond all controversy, that home, home affections, home pursuits, home enjoyments, were more congenial to Mr. Webster's nature, than the dizzy heights of office, or the stormy forum.

He saw not merely in HOME, the walls that protected him, from Boreas and the dog-star, the spot of earth appropriated to himself, the place that ministered to his material enjoyments, but while the sense of comfort and the sense of property entered into its complex idea, his sentiments and affections gave to it a higher and holier meaning. The word Home carried him back to his infancy, and forward to his age. It connected itself with all his affections, filial, fraternal, parental, with those grand and solemn epochs of humanity, birth, marriage and death. To his lofty imagination, the roof-tree was consecrated with ceremonies, more imposing than those of our Saxon ancestors. It symbolized the family tie, the domestic virtues, the Lares and Penates of classic mythology. Home was his retreat from the world of action, to the world of contemplation. Here he was to live. These walls would witness those experiences, sweet, bitter, mournful; those communings with God, with friends, kindred and himself; those aspirations, dreams, disappointments – that are embraced in that word of infinite significance, Life. Here his wife was to administer love and consolation; here children were to be born, hostages to fortune, heritors of name and fame, idols upon whom can be lavished the inexhaustible treasures of love. Here the pilgrimage was to end, here he was to die.

On the bleak and rugged soil of Salisbury, New Hampshire, in a green nook, hardly sheltered from the wintry blasts, he was born. Under an aged elm, whose branches reach across the highway, stands this ancient habitation. It is in the shadow of lofty mountains, while a broad and rapid river winds through the meadows spread out before the door. "Looking out at the east window," says he, in one of his letters, from this hallowed spot, "my eye sweeps along a level field of one hundred acres. At the end of it, a third of a mile off, I see plain marble grave-stones, designating the places where repose my father and mother, brother and sisters. The fair field is before me. I could see a lamb on any part of it. I have ploughed it, and raked it, but never mowed it; somehow, I could never learn to hang a scythe."

As Webster advances, in years and distinction, he seems only to have been drawing a lengthened chain from his first home. With what constancy does he carry its features in his mind, Kearsarge, the Merrimack and Punch Brook! He spares no expense to cultivate the old acres and keep, the old house in repair. With what regularity does he revisit it and explore all his boyish haunts, the orchard, the mill, the meeting-house, the well, the hillside and the trout stream! With what a swelling heart, and moistened eye, does he sit beneath the ancestral elms that stretch their arms, in benediction, over the old homestead, while busy fancy repeoples these familiar scenes with the absent and the dead, the mother that bore him, the father on whose shoulder he wept, the much beloved brother, whose education he earned, "with weary fingers by the midnight lamp?" How from the great popular gathering, from the "sea of upturned faces," and even from the important issues that hung on his eloquence, does his mind impulsively wander to this cherished home – "Raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and incidents, which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. I weep to think that none of those who inhabited it are now among the living; and if ever I am ashamed of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for HIM who reared and defended it against savage violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and blood of seven years' revolutionary war, shrunk from no danger, no toil, no sacrifice to serve his country, and to raise his children to a condition better than his own, may my name and the name of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory of mankind."

"Take care," says he, in one of the last letters which he wrote to John Taylor, "take care to keep my mother's garden in good order, even if it cost you the wages of a man to take care of it." One of Mr. Webster's most cherished relics, which he sometimes carried in his vest pocket, and exhibited to his friends, was an antique tea-spoon, covered with rust, which John Taylor found in this very garden of his mother. In the library at Marshfield, the eye turns from Healey's splendid portraits, to a small and unpretending silhouette, with the inscription, "my excellent mother," in the handwriting of her immortal son.

When he selected as the home of his manhood, the old mansion by the far-resounding sea, how completely was every want of his nature represented in the grand and impressive features of the place. Marshfield lies within the limits of the Pilgrims' earliest colony, and on Mr. Webster's farm stands the house to which Edward Winslow carried his household gods, from aboard the tempest-tost Mayflower, and the house to which a company of British soldiers bade final adieu, when they marched from it to storm the redoubts on Bunker Hill. It thus connects two chapters of that colonial history, which Mr. Webster loved to study and paint, and two imperishable monuments to his own renown. It is surrounded by vast and fertile fields, meadows and pastures green, dotted here and there with groves and orchards, for one who worshiped, as in a sanctuary, beneath the over-hanging branches of trees, and dotted also with great herds of red and black oxen, for one who "was glad when his cattle lifted up their large-eyed, contemplative faces, and recognized their master by a look." Its border, landward, is hedged with nothing less than a vast forest of pines, and within a few hours' ride, lies a fresh wilderness, unbroken, as when the Pilgrims first saw it from the Mayflower's mast-head, where the wild eagle still soars, and the timid deer "glances through the glade." His eye, far as its glance could penetrate, rested on the most sublime of all nature's attractions, on thee —

"glorious mirror where the Almighty's form
Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed – in breeze, or gale, or storm,
Icing the pole, or in the torrid zone
Dark heaving; boundless, endless, and sublime,
The image of eternity, the throne
Of the Invisible."

Scattered over its far-reaching expanse, he could always see the white sails of that commerce he loved to defend, and occasionally, one of those "oak leviathans," bearing the glorious flag of the union – "not a stripe erased, or polluted, not a single star obscured;" memorials at once of the nation's glory, and of his own proudest triumph.

As deep answereth unto deep, none of the majestic harmonies of the domain, but found a full and equal response in the bosom of its lord. Old ocean never rolled its waves, at the feet of one who could better grasp their immeasurable extent, unfathomable depth. When, with these surroundings, he stood on that autumn eve, beneath that magnificent elm that grows by his door-side, the sea's eternal anthem in his ear, and in his eye, the infinite vault of the starry heavens, he could find in recorded language but this one utterance: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers; the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor."

While his tastes were thus attuned to the grandest aspects of nature, all the rural sights and rural sounds of this chosen spot, ministered to the delight of his acute sensibilities. "The smell of new-mown hay," says Mr. Hillard, "and of the freshly turned furrows of spring, was cordial to his spirit. The whetting of the mower's scythe, the beat of the thresher's flail, the heavy groan of loaded wagons, were music to his ear!" The rich verdure of clover, the waving of the golden grain, the shriek of the sea-mew and the softest song of the nightingale; all the varying aspects of sky and field and sea, furnished him with a distinct and peculiar enjoyment. The shrinking quail whistled in his garden shrubbery, and fed, unscared, in his carriage-way.

The observer can not fail to notice characteristics of Webster in all the features of this favorite abode. His door-yard is a broad field of twenty acres, unbroken by fence or hedge. Around it, sweep in concentric circles, of vast diameter, great belts of forest-trees, planted with his own hands, offering secluded recesses and shady walks, where "musing solitude might love to roam." Gotham Hill, once a sand-bank, piled up by the ocean, and long defeating, by its barrenness, the ingenuity of his culture, he at length clothed with a green garment of beautiful clover. Cherry Hill was converted from a lean and parched mole, into a cool and inviting grove, within a rod of his door, almost an alcove to the library. Everything in and about the house were as thoroughly systemized and adapted to each other, as the points of one of his briefs. The appurtenances of the mansion, the main barn, the sheep barn, the piggery, are all where the necessities of the farm and the comeliness of the homestead require them to be placed. In the interior, the parlors, the library filled with the lore of all ages, the ample hospitality of the dining-room, the breakfast-room, opening toward that morning light he loved so dearly, the dairy cooled by its proximity to the ice-house, the gun-room furnished with every appliance for field sports, the decorations and the furniture; everything in his mansion as in his arguments, bespeaks the mind of Webster.

Within a stone's throw of this parlor-window, observe those two young English elms; they are called "the Brother and Sister," and were thus named and thus planted, by the bereaved father, when Julia and Edward were torn from his heart. "I hope the trees will live," said he, with touching pathos of tone, as he completed this labor of love. There is no more pathetic expression of parental sorrow, to be found in our language, than the dedication of the sixth volume of his works, to the same departed twain. "With the warmest parental affection, mingled with afflicted feelings, I dedicate this, the last volume of my works, to the memory of my deceased children, Julia Webster Appleton, beloved in all the relations of daughter, wife, mother, sister and friend; and Major Edward Webster, who died in Mexico, in the military service of the United States, with unblemished honor and reputation, and who entered the service solely from a desire to be useful to his country, and do honor to the state in which he was born.

"Go, gentle spirits, to your destined rest;
While I – reversed our nature's kindlier doom —
Pour forth a father's sorrow on your tomb."

And yet Mr. Webster was "cold as marble; all intellect."

But let us pass into the library; the Library! Here Vulcan forged those infrangible chains, that impenetrable armor – the shield of Achilles and the sword of Hector. Here you feel nearer to Webster than even when you enter his tomb; much that is in this room his immortal spirit carried with it in its upward flight. It is not that lifelike portrait, by Healey, that introduces you, as it were, into the visible presence of the great statesman. It is the inspiration of the place, these scattered tools, just as they were dropped by the master-workman, that well-worn manual, thumbed by his own hand; that turned leaf, indicating the last page of human lore upon which his eye ever gazed; that arm-chair, his favorite seat. He seems just to have left it, and you will now find him, in one of those shady lanes, that lead to Cherry Hill, walking slowly, as he welds together the facts and principles he has gleaned from yonder opened folio. Here then, with these surroundings, with that beautiful landscape in his eye, Daniel Webster studied, pondered, and communed with these old tomes as with familiar faces. How often has he turned from the living world, to find kindred here in Bacon, Chatham, Fox and Burke! How often has his eye run over that complete set of parliamentary debates! How often has he conned those volumes of Hansard, and these of McCullough! How often has he resorted to that full alcove of dictionaries, to learn the precise and exact meaning of some important word; and to you, Shakspeare, Milton and Gray, how often has he fled for refreshment and consolation! How often, harassed by cares, and stung by ingratitude, has he murmured, in this air, the music of his favorite Cicero, "Hæc studia adolescentiam alunt, senectutem oblectant, secundas res ornant, adversis perfugium ac solatium præbent, delectant domi, non impediunt foris, pernoctant nobiscum, peregrinantur, rusticantur."

Let us now ascend this staircase, (adorned with no costly paintings, but with some choice engravings, interesting from the associations they recall, or as mementos from friends, or tributes from artists,) and approach this darkened chamber, looking toward the setting sun; tread softly and slowly! Within these walls, on that plain bedstead, beneath that window commanding an ocean prospect, Webster died. Here occurred that grand and affecting leave-taking, with kindred, friends and the world; here, "the curfew tolled the knell of parting day;" here occurred a death-scene, which can find no parallel in human history, but in the death of Socrates; here, with the assured consciousness, that his own contributions to the fund of human wisdom were imperishable, and that the "next ages" could not fail to do justice to his patriotic labors, he faintly murmured, as his spirit took its flight, and his eye closed forever, "I still live."

On an eminence overlooking the sea, by the side of the burial-place of the first Pilgrims, is Webster's last home. A mound of earth and marble slab, mark the spot where sleeps all that is mortal of the great American.

notes

1

On the causes and consequences of the war with France.

2

"Three months after this (during the second quarter), the Selectmen procured lodgings for me at Dr. Nahum Willard's. This physician had a large practice, a good reputation for skill, and a pretty library. Here were Dr. Cheyne's works, Sydenham, and others, and Van Swieten's Commentaries on Boerhaave. I read a good deal in these books, and entertained many thoughts of becoming a physician and surgeon." —The Works of John Adams, edited by Charles Francis Adams– Vol. II., p. 7.

3

The Works of John Adams – Vol. II., page 9.

4

The Works of John Adams – Vol. II., p. 145.

5

This picture is engraved in the "The Life and Works," Vol. II., Frontispiece. We are obliged to guess at the age when it was taken, since we find no hint concerning it – indeed no reference to the picture any where in the book.

6

"The American nettle-tree. One of these is still to be seen growing out of the top of the rock at this place." —Ed. The Life and Works.

7