“Mr. Webster you know already. He sits at yon table, playing at whist. This is trifling away his time, for he is the last man to spend his hours in innocent amusements. Mr. Webster is, according to my opinion, a gentleman without imagination or extensive reading; but of immense natural talents, and severe application to his profession. He is considered one of the best, and there are those who consider him the best, constitutional lawyer; and, certes, his judgment, discrimination, and logic are not surpassed by any member or senator in Congress. Yet, with all these qualities, he is better calculated for a debater than for a leader; his mind being more of that analytic order which succeeds in dissecting and destroying, than of that synthetic character which combines simple elements to an harmonious whole. The latter requires a creative genius, and a certain intuitive knowledge of things; whereas the process of dissection presupposes but a careful examination of facts, and the application of sound logic.
“To understand where Mr. Webster’s talents lie, it is only necessary to study his parliamentary tactics, and to read his speeches. He never rises from his seat, except to repel an attack, or to take advantage of an overture given by one of his enemies. When an important question—of which he is hardly ever the originator—is proposed, his practice is to wait until every one has given his opinion; he then compares them, dissects them, analyses them, and (wonderful!) pronounces upon them like a judge after hearing the argument of each counsel. Every flaw in the reasoning, in the expression,—every logical imperfection is sure to be detected; and his speech, which in truth is a critical abstract of all the speeches delivered in Congress, passes then, with his friends at least, for an original production. But I would ask, what particular measure has he originated that produced either good or evil to the country? The tariff?—That was Mr. Calhoun’s measure. Internal improvements, or a bank.?—That honour (!) belongs to Henry Clay. When, at the session of Congress in 1832-3, the country was threatened with civil war, was it he that averted the calamity by the proposition of a measure calculated to satisfy all parties?—No; this honour belongs again to Henry Clay. What, then, I ask, has he done that is so wonderful?—He is a great constitutional lawyer! That may be; but he has not yet delivered his ideas in a scientific form, and the commentaries of Mr. Justice Story will perhaps outlive the fame of Daniel Webster.
DANIEL WEBSTER.
“Mr. Webster’s great tact in repelling an enemy consists in personal satire and irony. Thus he succeeded against Mr. Haines, and against a number of minor opponents, who all went to swell his renown. His speeches are clear and argumentative; but, while they occupy your understanding, they leave you cold and cheerless. He cannot excite your imagination; he cannot touch your feelings; and he does not stimulate your enthusiasm. Neither is he capable of supplying this deficiency by his personality; for, though respected and admired throughout the country, he is not beloved,—no, not even by his own partisans. Mr. Webster knows the laws of his country; but he is less acquainted with the men that are to be governed by them, and possesses none of those conciliating and engaging qualities which insure personal popularity. This accounts for his position in Congress, where, notwithstanding the powerful aid he lends to the opposition, he stands alone—the terrible senator from Massachusetts.
“Neither is Mr. Webster as a speaker entirely without faults. He sometimes tries to sink the bathos by being flowery and rhetorical; and he seems to labour under the singular impression that a public speaker must commence and leave off with a flourish, and on this account violates his imagination with the composition of regular beginnings and ends, which are but too frequently wholly irrelevant to the text of his discourses. He had, in this respect, better follow the example of certain landscape painters, who, being perfectly equal to the inanimate, leave the figures to be done by somebody else.”
N.B.—It is now three years since I noted down the conversation of the democratic senator. I have since heard so much of Daniel Webster,—European writers, and especially Miss Martineau,[26] having actually made his apotheosis,—that, as a pendant to the Old Bailey speech recorded in her last work on America, I cannot refrain here from laying before the British reader some elegant extracts from one of his speeches (called the Great Speech), in reply to the remarks of John C. Calhoun, delivered in the Senate on the 12th of March 1838. This speech, one of the most elaborate of which he was ever delivered, fills, in the “New York American,” seventeen and a quarter columns, and was intended to demolish his antagonist. It is on that account full of personal attacks, occasionally interspersed with a modest praise of himself.
Mr. Calhoun had been defending an independent Treasury, such as exists, and has always existed, in every country, whether the Government was monarchical or republican; while Mr. Webster, the advocate of a union between the Government and the Bank, tried to ridicule the idea; endeavouring to show that his adversary had been previously wrong on a question relating to the tariff. Mr. Calhoun, in his opening remarks, pointed to the evils of the irresponsible American banking system; to its “self-sustaining principle, which poised and impelled the system, self-balanced in the midst of the heavens like some celestial body, with scarcely a perceptible deviation from its path from the concussion it had received;” and at last took the following philosophic ground:—
“But its most fatal effects (the effects of the American banking system) originate in its bearing on the moral and intellectual developement of the community. The great principles of demand and supply govern the moral and intellectual world no less than the business and commercial. If a community be so organised as to cause a demand for high mental attainments, they are sure to be developed. If its honours and rewards are allotted to pursuits that require their developement by creating a demand for intelligence, knowledge, wisdom, justice, firmness, courage, patriotism, and the like, they are sure to be produced. But if allotted to pursuits that require inferior qualities, the higher are sure to decay and perish. I object to the banking system, because it allots the honours and rewards of the community in a very undue proportion to a pursuit the least of all others favourable to the developement of the higher mental qualities, intellectual or moral,—to the decay of the learned professions, and the more noble pursuits of science, literature, philosophy, and statesmanship, and the great and more useful pursuits of business and industry. With the vast increase of its profits and influence it is gradually concentrating in itself most of the prizes of life,—wealth, honour, and influence,—to the great disparagement and degradation of all the liberal, useful, and generous pursuits of society. The rising generation cannot but feel its deadening influence. The youth who crowd our colleges, and behold the road to honour and distinction terminating in a banking-house, will feel the spirit of emulation decay within them, and will no longer be pressed forward by generous ardour to mount up the rugged steep of science as the road to honour and distinction, when, perhaps, the highest point they could attain in what was once the most honourable and influential of learned professions would be the place of attorney to a bank.”