Twice he was sent to the United States Senate to fill seats left vacant by resignation, and here his power as a speaker was so marked that when it was known that he would address the Senate the galleries were always full.
Such was the beginning of his life as a statesman. It lasted some forty years, and during this long period he was a prominent leader in the great events having to do with the country’s future.
He filled various national offices. He was Speaker of the House of Representatives for many years, was four years Secretary of State, and during much more than half of the time between 1831 and 1852 he was in the United States Senate. Three times he was a candidate for President, but each time he failed of election.
He would not swerve by a hair’s breadth from what he considered his duty, even for party ends. “I would rather be right than be President,” he said, and men knew that he was sincere.
Living in a Southern State, he would naturally have the interests of the South at heart. But he did not always take her part. While Calhoun was apt to see but one side of a question, Clay was inclined to see something of both sides and to present his views in such a way as to bring about a settlement. Therefore he was called “the Great Peacemaker.”
His most important work as a peacemaker had to do with the Missouri Compromise (1820), the compromise tariff (1833), and the Compromise of 1850—all of which we look into a little farther on, after we come to know something about the last and perhaps the greatest of our three statesmen, Daniel Webster. For all three were interested in the same great movement.
DANIEL WEBSTER
Daniel Webster was born among the hills of New Hampshire, in 1782, the son of a poor farmer, and the ninth of ten children. As he was a frail child, not able to work much on the farm, his parents permitted him to spend much of his time fishing, hunting, and roaming at will over the hills. Thus he came into close touch with nature and absorbed a kind of knowledge which was very useful to him in later years.
He was always learning things, sometimes in most unusual ways, as is shown by an incident which took place when he was only eight years old. Having seen in a store near his home a small cotton handkerchief with the Constitution of the United States printed upon it, he gathered up his small earnings to the amount of twenty-five cents and eagerly secured the treasure. From this unusual copy he learned the Constitution, word for word, so that he could repeat it from beginning to end.
