THE WEBSTERS.
Daniel Webster, together with Mr. Clay, had much to do with the Compromise measures of 1850. These consisted in the admission of California as a free State, the organizing of the Territories of Utah and New Mexico without any provision regarding slavery pro or con, the payment to Texas of one hundred million dollars for New Mexico,—which was a good trade for Texas,—the prohibition of the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, and the enactment of a Fugitive Slave Law permitting owners of slaves to follow them into the free States and take them back in irons, if necessary. The officials and farmers of the free States were also expected to turn out, call the dog, leave their work, and help catch these chattels and carry them to the south-bound train.
Daniel Webster was born in 1782, and Noah in 1758. Daniel was educated at Dartmouth College, where he was admitted in 1797. He taught school winters and studied summers, as many other great men have done since, until he knew about everything that anybody could. What Dan did not know, Noah did.
Strange to say, Daniel was frightened to death when first called upon to speak a piece. He says he committed dozens of pieces to memory and recited them to the woods and crags and cows and stone abutments of the New England farms, but could not stand up before a school and utter a word.
DANIEL WEBSTER COULD NOT STAND UP BEFORE A SCHOOL AND UTTER A WORD.
In 1801 he studied law with Thomas W. Thompson, afterwards United States Senator. He read then for the first time that "Law is a rule of action prescribing what is right and prohibiting what is wrong."
In 1812 he was elected to Congress, and in 1813 made his maiden speech. One of his most masterly speeches was made on economical and financial subjects; and yet in order to get his blue broadcloth coat with brass buttons from the tailor-shop to wear while making the speech, he had to borrow twenty-five dollars.
When the country has wanted a man to talk well on these subjects it has generally been compelled to advance money to him before he could make a speech. Sometimes he has to be taken from the pawn-shop. Webster, it is said, was the most successful lawyer, after he returned to Boston, that the State of Massachusetts has ever known; and yet his mail was full of notices from banks down East, announcing that he had overdrawn his account.
Once he was hard pressed for means, as he was trying to run a farm, and running a farm costs money: so he went to a bank to borrow. He hated to do it, because he had no special inducements to offer a bank or to make it hilariously loan him money.