The life of Daniel Webster extended from 1782 until 1852. His father was one of the brave men who fought at Lexington, and Daniel was the youngest of ten children who were compelled very early in life to share in the labor of supporting the family on a rocky New Hampshire farm. Working in his father’s sawmill, he used the time while the saw was going through the log in devouring a book. His abilities were very remarkable and the fame of “Webster’s boy” was known far and wide. His memory was very extraordinary. In a competition between the boys of his school in committing to memory verses in the Bible, the teacher heard him repeat some sixty or seventy which he had committed between Saturday and Monday and was then obliged to give up as Webster declared that there were several chapters more that he had learned. By means of great sacrifice on the part of the entire family, Daniel was sent to Phillips Exeter Academy, and, by teaching school in vacations, made his way through Dartmouth College. He took up the study of law and was admitted to practice in 1805.
There was something in Mr. Webster’s appearance and bearing which must have been very majestic. He seemed to everyone to be a giant; but as his proportions were not those of an unusually large man, his majestic appearance must have been due to something within which shone out through his piercing eyes and spoke in his finely cut and noble features. It is said that he never punished his children, but, when they did wrong, he would send for them and silently look at them, and the sorrow or the anger of the look was reproach enough.
Webster was a lawyer, an orator and a statesman. As a lawyer, his most famous arguments are those in the “Dartmouth College Case,” the “White Murder Case” and the “Steamboat Case,” as they are called. A part of his speech in the “Murder Case” is still printed in the school readers. The “Dartmouth College Case” is very famous. It was a suit whose success would have destroyed the college, and, after trial in the State Courts, it was appealed to the United States Supreme Court, before which Mr. Webster made his argument. The interest was very great and the details of the trial are among the most interesting in the history of our jurisprudence. The eloquence with which Mr. Webster described the usefulness of the institution, his love for it, and the consequences which the precedent sought to be established would involve, all contributed to make this one of the greatest oratorical efforts of which we have any record.
“Sir,” said he, “you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out, but, if you do so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those great lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their radiance over our land.
“It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet, there are those who love it——”
Here the feelings which he had thus far succeeded in keeping down broke forth. His lips quivered; his firm cheeks trembled with emotion; his eyes were filled with tears; his voice choked, and he seemed struggling to the utmost simply to gain that mastery over himself which might save him from an unmanly burst of feeling.
The court room, during these two or three minutes, presented an extraordinary spectacle. Chief Justice Marshall, with his tall, gaunt figure bent over as if to catch the slightest whisper, the deep furrows of his cheeks expanded with emotion, and eyes suffused with tears; Mr. Justice Washington at his side, with his small and emaciated frame, and countenance like marble, leaning forward with an eager, troubled look; and the remainder of the court, at the two extremities, pressing, as it were, toward a single point, while the audience below were wrapping themselves round in closer folds beneath the bench to catch each look, and every movement of the speaker’s face. If the painter could give us the scene on canvas—those forms and countenances, and Daniel Webster as he then stood in the midst—it would be one of the most touching pictures in the history of eloquence.
As an orator, Mr. Webster’s most famous speeches are the “Plymouth Rock Address” in 1820, on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of the Landing of the Pilgrims, the “Bunker Hill Monument Address,” and his speech in the Senate in reply to Hayne in 1830, and on “Clay’s Compromise Bill of 1850.”
Upon Mr. Harrison’s inauguration in 1841, Mr. Webster became Secretary of State, which office he held until 1843. During this time, he negotiated the famous treaty with Lord Ashburton which settled a long-standing dispute with England over the boundary of Maine. He supported Clay for the presidency in 1804 and opposed the annexation of Texas. In the debate on the “Compromise of 1850,” Mr. Webster advocated the acceptance of the provisions for extending slavery into the territory purchased from Mexico, and for the “Fugitive Slave Law,” and in so doing gave great offense to his supporters in the North. In 1850, he was appointed Secretary of State, which office he held until his death.
