Famous American Statesmen

by Sarah Knowles Bolton

He now took an active part in the revision of the Constitution of Massachusetts, helping to do away with the religious test, that a person holding office must declare his belief in the Christian religion. A believer himself, he was unwilling to force his views upon others. December 22, 1820, he delivered an oration at Plymouth, commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. It was a grand theme, and the theme had a master to handle it. He began simply, "Let us rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be thankful that we have lived to see the bright and happy breaking of the auspicious morn which commences the third century of the history of New England.... Forever honored be this, the place of our fathers' refuge! Forever remembered the day which saw them, weary and distressed, broken in everything but spirit, poor in all but faith and courage, at last secure from the danger of wintry seas, and impressing this shore with the first footsteps of civilized man!"

Then the picture was sketched on a glowing canvas;—the noble Pilgrims; the progress of New England during the century; the grand government under which we live and develop, with the Christian religion for our comfort and our hope. In closing he said, "The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace through us their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors. We would anticipate and partake the pleasure with which they will then recount the steps of New England's advancement. On the morning of that day, although it will not disturb us in our repose, the voice of acclamation and gratitude, commencing on the Rock of Plymouth, shall be transmitted through millions of the sons of the Pilgrims, till it lose itself in the murmurs of the Pacific seas."

The people heard the oration as though entranced. Said Mr. Ticknor, a man of remarkable culture, "I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the gush of blood; for, after all, you must know that I am aware it is no connected and compacted whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments of burning eloquence, to which his whole manner gave tenfold force. When I came out I was almost afraid to come near to him. It seemed to me as if he was like the mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire."

John Adams wrote him, "If there be an American who can read it without tears, I am not that American.... Mr. Burke is no longer entitled to the praise—the most consummate orator of modern times.... This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and indeed at the end of every year, forever and ever."

From the day he delivered that oration, Mr. Webster was the leading orator of America. From that day he belonged not to Grace Webster alone, not to Massachusetts, not to one political party, but to the people of the United States. Five years after that, he delivered the address at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill monument. Who does not remember the impassioned words to the survivors of the Revolution, "Venerable men! you have come down to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else, how changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault, the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to whatever of terror there may be in war and death,—all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more.... All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave forever. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils, and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you!

"But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amidst this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example."

Who has not read that address delivered at Faneuil Hall, Boston, in commemoration of the lives and services of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who died July 4, 1826. Who does not remember that imaginary speech of John Adams, "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote. It is true, indeed, that in the beginning we aimed not at independence. But there's a Divinity which shapes our ends.... Sir, I know the uncertainty of human affairs, but I see, I see clearly through this day's business. You and I, indeed, may rue it. We may not live to see the time when this declaration shall be made good. We may die,—die colonists,—die slaves;—die, it may be, ignominiously and on the scaffold. Be it so. Be it so. If it be the pleasure of Heaven that my country shall require the poor offering of my life, the victim shall be ready at the appointed hour of sacrifice, come when that hour may. But, while I do live, let me have a country, or at least the hope of a country, and that a free country."

Concerning this speech of John Adams, beginning, "Sink or swim, live or die," Mr. Webster said, "I wrote that speech one morning before breakfast, in my library, and when it was finished my paper was wet with my tears." In delivering this oration, his manuscript lay near him on a small table, but he did not once refer to it. As far as possible in his addresses, he preferred Anglo-Saxon words to those with Latin origin; therefore, this great speech is so simple that school-boys the country over can declaim it and understand it.

In 1823, when Webster was forty-one, Boston elected him to Congress. He was, of course, widely known and observed; courtly in physique, impassioned yet calm, easy yet dignified, comprehensive in thought, a lover of and expounder of the Constitution.

The following year he visited Marshfield, on the south-east shore of Massachusetts, and saw the home which he afterward purchased, and which, with its eighteen hundred acres, became the joy of his later years. Here he planted flowers and trees. He would often say to others, "Plant trees, adorn your grounds, live for the benefit of those who shall come after you." Here he watched every sunrise and sunset, every moonrise from new to full, and grew rested and refreshed by these ever recurring glimpses of divine power. He said, "I know the morning; I am acquainted with it, and I love it, fresh and sweet as it is, a daily creation, breaking forth and calling all that have life, and breath, and being, to new adoration, new enjoyments, and new gratitude."