While I would not enlarge on the subject of Mr. Webster's public services and extraordinary statesmanship already so well known throughout this and other countries, I may briefly refer to one especially eloquent speech of the many made by him to which it was my privilege to listen. After the death of President Harrison, and the accession to office of Vice-President John Tyler, all the members of the Cabinet, except Mr. Webster, resigned. He remained as Secretary of State, for the purpose of bringing to a successful conclusion a perplexing controversy between Great Britain and the United States as to the trial and release of Alexander McLeod, a British subject, then held as a prisoner in the State of New York for participating in an attack on the steamer "Caroline" within the waters of the United States. The British Government avowed the act as authorized, and imperatively demanded McLeod's release. It tasked to the utmost the extraordinary ability of Mr. Webster, as a mutual friend informed me, to find sufficient ground on which to comply with England's demand, and yet maintain the dignity of the Government of the United States, consistently with the relations between the Federal Government and that of the State of New York. The question seemed at one time to threaten the peaceful relations between England and America, of which the public were not aware. Under Mr. Webster's construction of the duty and obligations of our Government, McLeod was surrendered, and soon after Mr. Webster resigned. Having been unjustly criticised by certain political leaders, and his motives impugned for remaining so long in the Cabinet, he at once sought vindication in a speech delivered in Faneuil Hall, defining his position, in which he poured out a torrent of eloquence seldom equalled, and in which he clearly indicated the chagrin that even a great man may feel when he is made the subject of unjust suspicion and criticism.
While I have no claim whatever to be regarded as one of the great statesman's associates, I was favored with a very limited and casual acquaintance in the latter part of his life, and an opportunity to know something of his private life and his religious character, through his particular friends, of whom a few were also my personal friends. I may perhaps, therefore, properly speak of unquestionable facts which have, by force of circumstances, come to my knowledge at different times through a period of about forty years, tending to disprove the base rumor and slanders which have found an astonishing currency.
To these I never thought it proper to refer publicly, until the pages of one of our most respectable periodicals[B] reproduced the rumors, which were subsequently publicly refuted in the Boston Herald, by Mr. Webster's able biographer, George Ticknor Curtis. The friends of Mr. Webster would have been false to his memory and their own moral obligation had they failed to put forward the evidence in their possession to disprove the charges on which such rumors were fabricated, and which, until a few years ago, had not found a place, so far as I know, in any respectable publication.
The late Dr. John Jeffries, who was the physician of Mr. Webster, was also my family physician for twenty years. Not long after the close of the late civil war, an Episcopal clergyman of Charleston, S.C., became my guest. He being in need of medical advice, I introduced him to Dr. Jeffries. After his case had been disposed of he inquired of Dr. Jeffries: "Pray, sir, were the stories which we hear at the South concerning Mr. Webster's private character true?" The doctor replied: "Do you refer to his alleged drinking habits?"—"Yes, sir," said the clergyman. "No, sir," answered Dr. Jeffries; "they were not true." He added: "I was his physician for many years, and made the post-mortem examination. He died from no such cause." To illustrate to what extent Mr. Webster was misunderstood and consequently maligned, the doctor related the following fact: "On a certain occasion when Mr. Webster was engaged to speak in Faneuil Hall, he had been for several days much reduced by medical treatment. Late in the afternoon I suggested that, in his reduced condition, a glass of wine would be useful. He replied: 'No, doctor, I prefer a plate of soup; and when His Honor the Mayor calls for me, perhaps you will accompany me.' I assented, and did accompany him. That evening, before Mr. Webster had closed his speech, a certain political rival left the hall and was met by a friend, who inquired, 'Is the meeting over?' The envious politician answered, 'No; I have come away disgusted. Webster is intoxicated.'" Who was the most reliable witness in this case,—his honest physician, an eye-witness, who spoke from knowledge, or the political rival, who spoke from false inference? This is but one of several similar instances of misapprehension and consequent cruel injustice which I might relate, did the time and occasion permit.
There is now living in this city a gentleman of the highest respectability, personally well-known to me for thirty-five years, who was for about twenty-five years intimately connected with Mr. Webster, at Marshfield, as the manager of his affairs, and consequently with him under all circumstances during his summer residence there. Mr. Webster regarded him with the affection of a father for a son. This gentleman has said to me more than once, with emotion and evident feelings of indignation: "No one has ever seen Mr. Webster at Marshfield unduly under the influence of stimulants." He adds: "I was with him on festive occasions here and in New Hampshire, when others were indulging in the customary habit of drinking; but I have never seen Mr. Webster, on those occasions, use stimulants to excess."
The late Judge Peleg Sprague, whom from family relationship it was my privilege to know intimately until the very last year of his life, a short time before his death, in conversation with me, refuted the charges of Mr. Webster's alleged excessive drinking habits in Washington. Judge Sprague was ten years in Congress, and was associated with Mr. Webster, under various circumstances, in public and social life.
I have thus offered the evidence of three witnesses, whose opportunity of knowledge and whose credibility, it cannot be denied, are to be accepted against rumors so easily put in circulation by reckless as well as by mistaken men, but which have beyond question been believed by very many good men who had not the opportunity, or perhaps the sense of obligation, to investigate the origin of them.
As to Mr. Webster's religious character and habits of mind, I can hardly express the great satisfaction afforded me by the testimony of his intimate friend, the Rev. Dr. Lothrop, who has in eloquent and unqualified language confirmed, and, indeed, more than confirmed, all that others have known of it.[C] Dr. Lothrop repeated his criticism on a prayer once offered by the chaplain of the United States Senate, in which Mr. Webster concurred, expressing at the same time his view of the nature and true object of prayer. This reminds me of the fact that the last sermon which Mr. Webster ever heard was on the subject of prayer, from the lips of the late Rev. Dr. Kirk, preached in the little Methodist church at Duxbury, about four miles from Marshfield. This was about six weeks before Mr. Webster's death. He was accompanied by Sir John Crampton, the British Minister, who at that time was at Marshfield negotiating a treaty on the fishery question, Mr. Webster then being Secretary of State. Through the mutual friendly relations of my esteemed friend and partner, the Hon. Seth Sprague, I had the privilege, with him and the Rev. Dr. Kirk, of dining with Mr. Webster the next day. It afforded an opportunity to listen to his entertaining and instructive anecdotes, of which I will relate one only. He said: "On a certain occasion, when President Kirkland, of Harvard University, was called upon by one of his familiar friends, a clergyman, he inquired as to the state of affairs in his parish; to which the clergyman replied, 'We are troubled by a good deal of controversy.'—'Ah! and pray what may the subject be?' inquired Dr. Kirkland. 'It is the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints which agitates the minds of my people,' said the clergyman. 'Well,' said President Kirkland, 'I, too, have a controversy among my people; but the topic is of a very different nature. What troubles me and them most is, the final perseverance of sinners.'"
I am sure, however, that his own statement of his Confession of Faith, written in 1807, and published in the Boston Courier about twenty-two years since, taken together with his extraordinary plea in the famous Girard case, and his address at Plymouth in 1820, on the subject of its settlement by the Pilgrim fathers will be specially appreciated. The confession is as follows:—
I believe in the existence of Almighty God, who created and governs the whole world. I am taught this by the works of Nature and the word of Revelation.