Mr. Webster's fame rests chiefly on his state papers and his speeches in Congress; but he took a prominent part in some of the most famous law cases of the present century. Several of his public addresses on occasional themes are well known, also. As a speaker, he was dignified and stately, using clear, straightforward, pure English. He had none of the tricks of oratory. He was large of person, with a massive head, a swarthy complexion, and deep-set, keen, and lustrous eyes. His grand presence added much to his power as a speaker. ###
The eulogium pronounced on the character of the State of South Carolina by the honorable gentleman, for her Revolutionary and other merits, meets my hearty concurrence. I shall not acknowledge that the honorable member goes before me, in regard for whatever of distinguished talent or distinguished character South Carolina has produced. I claim part of the honor; I partake in the pride of her great names. I claim them for countrymen, one and all—the Laurenses, the Rutledges, the Pinckneys, the Sumters, the Marions—Americans all—whose fame is no more to be hemmed in by state lines than their talents and patriotism were capable of being circumscribed within the same narrow limits.
In their day and generation, they served and honored the country, and the whole country, and their renown is of the treasures of the whole country. Him whose honored name the gentleman himself bears,—does he suppose me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his suffering, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light in Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit in Carolina a name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir,—increased gratification and delight rather. Sir, I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is said to be able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down.
When I shall be found, sir, in my place here in the Senate, or elsewhere, to sneer at public merit because it happened to spring up beyond the little limits of my own state or neighborhood; when I refuse for any such cause, or for any cause, the homage due to American talent, to elevated patriotism, to sincere devotion to liberty and the country; or if I see an uncommon endowment of Heaven; if I see extraordinary capacity or virtue in any son of the South; and if, moved by local prejudice, or gangrened by state jealousy, I get up here to abate a tithe of a hair from his just character and just fame, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!
Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts. She needs none. There she is; behold her, and judge for yourselves. There is her history; the world knows it by heart. The past, at least, is secure. There is Boston, and Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill; and there they will remain forever. And, sir, where American Liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood, and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it; if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it; if folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from that Union, by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand, in the end, by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked; it will stretch forth its arm, with whatever of vigor it may still retain, over the friends who gathered around it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amid the proudest monuments of its glory and on the very spot of its origin.
NOTES.—The Laurenses were of French descent. Henry Laurens was appointed on the commission with Franklin and Jay to negotiate the treaty of peace at Paris at the close of the Revolution. His son, John Laurens, was an aid and secretary of Washington, who was greatly attached to him.
The Rutledges were of Irish descent. John Rutledge was a celebrated statesman and lawyer. He was appointed Chief Justice of the United States, but the Senate, for political reasons, refused to confirm his appointment.
Edward Rutledge, brother of the preceding, was Governor of South Carolina during the last two years of his life.
The Pinckneys were an old English family who emigrated to Charleston in 1687. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney and his brother Thomas were both active participants in the Revolution. The former was an unsuccessful candidate for the presidency of the United States, in 1800.
Thomas was elected governor of South Carolina in 1789. In the war of 1812 he served as major-general.