DANIEL WEBSTER, THE DEFENDER OF THE CONSTITUTION
Daniel Webster, 1782
Loves the woods and fields
A good reader
153. A College Boy and a Young Lawyer. Daniel Webster was born of good Puritan stock, in 1782, in New Hampshire. He was a very weakly child. No one dreamed that one day he would have an iron-like body. Daniel spent much of his time playing in the woods and fields. He loved the birds and beasts that he found there. He went to school, but the schoolmasters were not very learned, and Daniel could read better than most of them. The teamsters, stopping to water their horses, were glad to hear him read. He went to work in an old-fashioned sawmill, but he read books even there in odd moments of time.
Webster at Exeter Academy
One day in spring his father took him to Exeter Academy to prepare for college. The boys laughed at his rustic dress and manners. The timid little fellow was greatly hurt by their scorn.
He finally entered Dartmouth College at the age of fifteen. He was simple, natural, and full of affection.
The best student at Dartmouth
He loved public speaking
Webster was the best student at Dartmouth. He still kept the reading habit. The students liked him. They had a feeling that he would amount to something some day. At this time he was tall and thin, with high cheek bones. His eyes were deep set, and his voice was low and musical in its tones. He loved to speak, even then.
At the age of eighteen Webster gave the Fourth of July oration in his college town. The speech was full of the love of country and of the Union, then in its first days of trial.
HOUSE AT ELM FARMS
The birthplace of Daniel Webster. The site is now occupied by the New Hampshire State Orphans Asylum
Teaches school and studies law
He never forgot his father's sacrifice in sending him to college. After he had finished at Dartmouth, Webster taught school in order that he might help his parents send his elder brother to college. He afterwards studied law. But he longed to finish his law studies in Boston. Finally good fortune put him in the office of Christopher Gore, a wise man, a great lawyer, and a statesman. In his office Daniel Webster studied until he was given the right to practice law.
Within a few years, he was earning enough to enable him to take a life partner, the beautiful and accomplished Grace Fletcher, the daughter of a minister. She made a delightful home for him and their children.
Elected to Congress
Favors a naval war
Webster was gaining name and fame as a lawyer, but the approach of the War of 1812 drew him into politics. He was elected to Congress, and took his seat in 1813. Henry Clay was Speaker of the House of Representatives. Webster's most important speech was in favor of a war carried on by the navy: "If the war must be continued, go to the ocean. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions cease at the water's edge."
SCENE OF THE FOURTH OF JULY ORATION
Daniel Webster asserting the dignity of patriotism at Dartmouth, July 4, 1800
Webster's appearance
His battle with Hayne
After the war, Webster left Congress for a number of years. He was now a great man. When he entered a room, by his mere look and presence he drew all eyes toward him, and all conversation hushed. In size, he looked larger and broader than he really was. His forehead was broad and massive. It towered above his large, dark, deep-set eyes. His hair was black and glossy as a raven's wing. He looked thus in 1830 in the Senate, when he made his famous speech in reply to Senator Hayne of South Carolina.
SCENE IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE
Daniel Webster defending the Federal Constitution against Hayne's idea of nullification
DANIEL WEBSTER
From a daguerreotype taken in 1850 by J. J. Hawes of Boston
Denies the right of nullification
"Liberty and Union, one and inseparable"
154. The Greatest Statesman of his Time. Hayne had spoken against a protective tariff and in favor of nullification. Webster felt called upon to reply. He denied the right of a state to nullify a law of Congress, and said that nullification was another name for secession. He closed his great speech with these words: "When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ... but may I see our flag with not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured ... but everywhere spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land ... that sentiment, dear to every American heart—Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"
This speech made Daniel Webster immortal. It did more; it fired the heart of every lover of his country.
Opposes Clay's Compromise Tariff
We saw how South Carolina went on toward nullification, and how Clay's Compromise Tariff settled the difficulty. Webster strongly opposed this compromise, and said that South Carolina should get out of the difficulty the best way she could.
Jackson praises Webster
President Jackson was delighted, and praised Webster in public and in private.
Harrison makes him Secretary of State
When Harrison captured the presidency, after the greatest campaign ever seen up to that time, he wanted the best men in the Whig party to advise him, so he made Daniel Webster Secretary of State.
Webster back in the Senate
It was a sad day when President Harrison died, after being in office just one month. John Tyler, of Virginia, the vice-president, became the president. But he would not accept measures which Congress had passed. Daniel Webster left the cabinet after a time because he disliked the way Tyler was doing. He went back to the United States Senate, where he joined Clay, supporting the great Compromise of 1850.
His speech on the Compromise
On March 7, Webster made his speech on the Compromise, entitled "For the Union and the Constitution." It was an appeal to all persons to stand by the Constitution and the Union. In blaming both the North and the South, much to the surprise of everybody, he blamed the North more than the South.
Because he did this, many of his supporters in the North, especially those in New England, turned their backs upon him. Webster was an old man now. Ever since 1832 he had looked forward to being nominated for the presidency, but his party always took some other man. His last days were made bitter and unhappy by the thought that some old friends had forsaken him.
THE UNITED STATES IN 1850
Boston welcomes Webster
Death at Marshfield, 1852
One bright spot for Webster lay in the fact that President Fillmore invited him to be Secretary of State again. After two years of service, he went back to Boston. He was received with joy by some of his friends and neighbors, and was hailed with shouts by the multitude. This must have made his heart leap with gratitude, for the praise of friends is pleasant. But men saw he was not like his former self. He went to his home at Marshfield, where he died, October 24, 1852, the greatest figure in American politics in his day.