The American Encyclopedia of History, Biography and Travel / Comprising Ancient and Modern History: the Biography of Eminent Men of Europe and America, and the Lives of Distinguished Travelers.

by Thomas H. Prescott

John E. Wool, a distinguished American general, was born in Newburgh, New York, in 1789. He received but a scanty education, and passed the greater part of his youth in the store of a merchant at Troy, in the situation of clerk. He afterwards commenced the study of law, but at the end of a year he gave up the idea of following this profession, and, war having been declared with Great Britain, he procured a captain’s commission in a regiment of infantry, and joined the forces under General Van Rensselaer, on the Niagara frontier. In the course of this war he distinguished himself greatly. For his services at Queenstown he was promoted to the rank of major; and for his gallant conduct at Plattsburgh he was made lieutenant-colonel, by brevet. During the interval of peace which followed the treaty of Ghent, Colonel Wool performed several important services. In 1832, he was despatched to Europe, for the purpose of procuring information on military matters; and in discharge of that duty he traveled through France and Belgium, and was present at Antwerp during the siege of that city by the French. In 1836, he superintended the removal of the Indians from the Cherokee country to the Arkansas; and, in 1838, he was placed in command of the Maine frontier during the troubles arising out of the boundary question. In 1841, he had risen by successive steps to the rank of brigadier-general. During the war with Mexico, General Wool was attached to the army under General Taylor; and it was to his skill and energy that the Americans were greatly indebted for the victory of Buena Vista. For his services on this occasion he was appointed major-general by brevet. Since the conclusion of the Mexican war, General Wool has been in command of the northeastern division of the American army, and now resides in the city of Troy.

GEN. WOOL.

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Daniel Webster was born in the town of Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782. His father, Major Ebenezer Webster, was one of the pioneers of the settlement in that quarter. He served with credit in the old French war, and also in the war of the revolution, especially under Stark, at Bennington. Major Webster established himself in a newly-granted township at the confluence of the Winnipisiogee and Pemigewasset, after the peace of 1763. In this region, then lying almost in a state of nature, the great orator and statesman was born, and passed the first years of his life. His opportunities of education were very deficient, and he was indebted for his earliest instruction to his mother, who was a woman of character and intelligence. For a few months only, in 1796, he enjoyed the advantages of Phillips’ Exeter academy. Here his education for college commenced; it was completed under the Rev. Dr. Wood, of Boscawen. He entered Dartmouth college in 1797, and during the four years of his study there, gave plain indications of future eminence. Soon after his graduation, he engaged in professional studies, first in his native village, and afterward at Fryeburg, in Maine, where at the same time he had the charge of an academy. He eked out his frugal salary by acting as a copyist in the office of register of deeds. He was moved to these strenuous exertions by the wish to aid his brother to obtain a college education. Having completed his law-studies in the office of governor Gore, of Boston, he was admitted to the bar of Suffolk, Massachusetts, in the year 1805. He immediately commenced the practice of law in his native state and county. His father, a man of sterling sense and character, who for the last twelve years of his life had been a judge of the court of common pleas, died in 1806, but not without the satisfaction of hearing his son’s first speeches at the bar. In 1807, Mr. Webster removed to Portsmouth in his native state, and soon became engaged in a most respectable and extensive, but not very lucrative practice. In 1812, he was chosen one of the members of congress from New Hampshire, and in due time was reëlected. Although among the youngest members of the house of representatives, and entirely without legislative experience, he rose at once to the front rank, both in the despatch of business and in debate. Among his associates in the house were Clay, Cheves, Lowndes, Calhoun, Forsyth, and other members of great ability. It was soon felt and admitted that he was worthy to be named with the ablest of them. It was the remark of Mr. Lowndes ‘that the south had not his superior, nor the north his equal.’ Finding the professional fields at Portsmouth inadequate to the support of a growing family, Mr. Webster removed to Boston in 1816. His professional reputation had grown as rapidly as his fame as a statesman. He placed himself at once by the side of the leaders of the Massachusetts bar. He had already appeared before the supreme court of the United States in Washington. By his brilliant argument in the Dartmouth college case, carried by appeal to Washington in 1817, he took rank among the most distinguished jurists in this country. In 1820, Mr. Webster was chosen a member of a convention called for the purpose of revising the constitution of Massachusetts. No one exercised a more powerful influence over its deliberations. He was offered, about this time, a nomination as a senator of the United States, but declined. In 1822, he yielded to the most pressing solicitations to become a candidate for the place of representative of the city of Boston in the eighteenth congress, and was chosen by a very large majority. This step involved a great sacrifice of professional interest. He took his seat in Congress in December, 1823, and early in the session made his celebrated speech on the Greek revolution, an effort which at once established his reputation as one of the first statesmen of the age. In the autumn of the same year he was reëlected by a vote of 4,990, out of 5,000 cast. In 1826 he was again a candidate, and not a hundred votes were thrown against him. Under the presidency of Mr. Adams (1825–29), he was the leader of the friends of the administration, first in the house of representatives, and afterward in the senate of the United States, to which he was elected in June, 1827. His great speech on the Panama mission was made in the first session of the nineteenth congress. When the tariff law of 1824 was brought forward, Mr. Webster spoke with great ability against it on the ground of expediency. He represented one of the greatest commercial constituencies in the Union; and his colleagues, with a single exception, voted with him against the bill. This law, however, forced a large amount of the capital of New England into manufactures; and in 1828 Mr. Webster sustained the law of that year for a more equal adjustment of the benefits of protection. The change which took place in his course in this respect was the result of the circumstances alluded to, and was approved by his constituents. Mr. Webster remained in the senate under the administration of Gen. Jackson, and Mr. Van Buren, a period of twelve years. During this time the most important questions were discussed, measures of the highest moment to the country were brought forward, and political events and combinations of the most novel and extraordinary character succeeded each other. Under all changes of men and measures, Mr. Webster maintained the position of a constitutional and patriot statesman, second to none who had ever devoted himself to the service of his country. In 1830, he made what is generally regarded the ablest of his parliamentary efforts, his second speech in reply to colonel Hayne of South Carolina. This gentleman in a speech on a resolution moved by Mr. Foote, of Connecticut, relative to the surveys of the public lands, had indulged in some personalities against Mr. Webster, had commented with severity on the political course of the New England states, and had laid down in rather an authoritative manner those views of the constitution usually known as the doctrines of ‘nullification.’ Mr. Webster was accordingly called upon to defend himself from the insinuations of the distinguished senator from South Carolina, to vindicate New England, and to point out the fallacies of nullification. To accomplish these objects, he employed all the resources of the most skillful rhetoric, polished sarcasm, and acute argument. The records of modern eloquence contain nothing of superior force and beauty. The second speech of Mr. Webster in this debate may be regarded as the greatest effort of this consummate orator. Shaping his public course by principle, and not by the blind impulse of party, Mr. Webster, though opposed to the administration of General Jackson, gave it a cordial support in its measures for the defense of the Union in 1832-’33. The doctrines of the president’s proclamation against the theories of South Carolina were mainly adopted from Mr. Webster’s speeches, and he was the chief dependence of the administration upon the floor of congress. When, however, the financial system of general Jackson was brought forward and fully developed, it was strenuously opposed by Mr. Webster. He foretold with accuracy the explosion which took place in the spring of 1837, and contributed materially to rally the public opinion of the country alike against the first phase of the new financial system, which was that of an almost boundless expansion of paper currency, issuing from the state banks, and against the opposite extreme, which was adopted as a substitute, that of an exclusive use of specie in all payments to or by the government. Mr. Webster maintained with great force of argument, and variety of illustration, the superior convenience of the financial system which had been adopted in the infancy of the government, with the approval of every administration, from that of Washington down, viz: that of a mixed currency of specie and convertible paper, kept within safe bounds by the law requiring all payments to be made in specie or its equivalent, and regulated by a national institution acting as a check upon the state banks. The clear and forcible manner in which these principles were inculcated by Mr. Webster contributed materially to the downfall of Mr. Van Buren’s administration. In 1839, Mr. Webster made a short visit to Europe. His time was principally passed in England, but he devoted a few weeks to the continent. His fame had preceded him to the old world, and he was received with the attention due to his character and talents at the French and English courts, and in the highest circles of both countries. On the accession of General Harrison to the presidency, Mr. Webster was placed at the head of his cabinet as secretary of state. His administration of the department during the two years he remained in it was signalized by the most distinguished success. The United States was at that time involved in a long standing controversy with Great Britain, on the subject of the northeastern boundary of Maine. To this had been added the difficult questions arising out of the detention of American vessels by British cruisers on the coast of Africa. Still more recently, the affair of M’Leod, in New York, had threatened an immediate rupture between the two governments. The correspondence between the United States’ minister, in London, in 1841, Mr. Stevenson and the British secretary of state for foreign affairs, Lord Palmerston, was of an uncompromising character. Other causes of mutual irritation existed, which the limits of this sketch do not permit us to enumerate.

DANIEL WEBSTER.