The extravagant admiration which Mr. Webster excited among his followers has undoubtedly exaggerated his greatness in many respects; but, high as the praise bestowed upon him as an orator has been, in that direction at least he has certainly not been overestimated. The reverse rather is true. Mr. Webster was, of course, the greatest orator this country has ever produced. Patrick Henry's fame rests wholly on tradition. The same is true of Hamilton, who, moreover, never had an opportunity adequate to his talents, which were unquestionably of the first order. Fisher Ames's reputation was due to a single speech which is distinctly inferior to many of Webster's. Clay's oratory has not stood the test of time; his speeches, which were so wonderfully effective when he uttered them, seem dead and cold and rather thin as we read them to-day. Calhoun was a great debater, but was too dry and hard for the highest eloquence. John Quincy Adams, despite his physical limitations, carried the eloquence of combat and bitter retort to the highest point in the splendid battles of his congressional career, but his learning, readiness, power of expression, argument, and scathing sarcasm were not rounded into a perfect whole by the more graceful attributes which also form an essential part of oratory.
Mr. Webster need not fear comparison with any of his countrymen, and he has no reason to shun it with the greatest masters of speech in England. He had much of the grandeur of Chatham, with whom it is impossible to compare him or indeed any one else, for the Great Commoner lives only in fragments of doubtful accuracy. Sheridan was universally considered to have made the most splendid speech of his day. Yet the speech on the Begums as given by Moore does not cast Webster's best work at all into the shade. Webster did not have Sheridan's brilliant wit, but on the other hand he was never forced, never involved, never guilty of ornament, which fastidious judges would now pronounce tawdry. Webster's best speeches read much better than anything of Sheridan, and, so far as we can tell from careful descriptions, his manner, look, and delivery were far more imposing. The "manly eloquence" of Fox seems to have resembled Webster's more closely than that of any other of his English rivals. Fox was more fertile, more brilliant, more surprising than Webster, and had more quickness and dash, and a greater ease and charm of manner. But he was often careless, and sometimes fell into repetitions, from which, of course, no great speaker can be wholly free any more than he can keep entirely clear of commonplaces. Webster gained upon him by superior finish and by greater weight of argument. Before a jury Webster fell behind Erskine as he did behind Choate, although neither of them ever produced anything at all comparable to the speech on the White murder; but in the Senate, and in the general field of oratory, he rises high above them both. The man with whom Webster is oftenest compared, and the last to be mentioned, is of course Burke. It may be conceded at once that in creative imagination, and in richness of imagery and language, Burke ranks above Webster. But no one would ever have said of Webster as Goldsmith did of Burke:—
"Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining."
Webster never sinned by over refinement or over ingenuity, for both were utterly foreign to his nature. Still less did he impair his power in the Senate as Burke did in the Commons by talking too often and too much. If he did not have the extreme beauty and grace of which Burke was capable, he was more forcible and struck harder and more weighty blows. He was greatly aided in this by his brief and measured periods, and his strength was never wasted in long and elaborate sentences. Webster, moreover, would never have degenerated into the ranting excitement which led Burke to draw a knife from his bosom and cast it on the floor of the House. This illustrates what was, perhaps, Mr. Webster's very strongest point,—his absolute good taste. He may have been ponderous at times in his later years. We know that he was occasionally heavy, pompous, and even dull, but he never violated the rules of the nicest taste. Other men have been more versatile, possessed of a richer imagination, and more gorgeous style, with a more brilliant wit and a keener sarcasm, but there is not one who is so absolutely free from faults of taste as Webster, or who is so uniformly simple and pure in thought and style, even to the point of severity.[1]
[Footnote 1: A volume might be written comparing Mr. Webster with other great orators. Only the briefest and most rudimentary treatment of the subject is possible here. A most excellent study of the comparative excellence of Webster's eloquence has been made by Judge Chamberlain, Librarian of the Boston Public Library, in a speech at the dinner of the Dartmouth Alumni, which has since been printed as a pamphlet.]
It is easy to compare Mr. Webster with this and the other great orator, and to select points of resemblance and of difference, and show where Mr. Webster was superior and where he fell behind. But the final verdict must be upon all his qualities taken together. He had the most extraordinary physical gifts of face, form, and voice, and employed them to the best advantage. Thus equipped, he delivered a long series of great speeches which can be read to-day with the deepest interest, instruction, and pleasure. He had dignity, grandeur, and force, a strong historic imagination, and great dramatic power when he chose to exert it. He possessed an unerring taste, a capacity for vigorous and telling sarcasm, a glow and fire none the less intense because they were subdued, perfect clearness of statement joined to the highest skill in argument, and he was master of a style which was as forcible as it was simple and pure. Take him for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator this country has ever known, but in the history of eloquence his name will stand with those of Demosthenes and Cicero, of Chatham and Burke.
CHAPTER VII.
THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON AND THE RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY.
In the year preceding the delivery of his great speech Mr. Webster had lost his brother Ezekiel by sudden death, and he had married for his second wife Miss Leroy of New York. The former event was a terrible grief to him, and taken in conjunction with the latter seemed to make a complete break with the past, and with its struggles and privations, its joys and successes. The slender girl whom he had married in Salisbury church and the beloved brother were both gone, and with them went those years of youth in which,—
"He had sighed deep, laughed free,
Starved, feasted, despaired, been happy."