DEDICATION* TO MY NIECES, MRS. ALICE BRIDGE WHIPPLE AND MRS. MARY ANN SANBORN MANY of the Speeches contained in this volume were delivered and printed in the lifetime of your father, whose fraternal affection led him to speak of them with approbation. His death, which happened when he had only just passed the middle period of life, left you without a father, and me without a brother. I dedicate this volume to you, not only for the love I have for yourselves, but also as a tribute of affection to his memory, and from a desire that the name of my brother, EZEKIEL WEBSTER, may be associated with mine, so long as anything written or spoken by me shall be regarded or read. * Volume I, Edition of 1851. 63558 DANIEL WEBSTER. Preface to the National Edition DANIEL WEBSTER, America's greatest statesman and lawyer, and one of the world's greatest orators, born January 18, 1782, passed away on the 24th of October, 1852. More than fifty years have elapsed, and yet the universal sorrow occasioned by his death is not forgotten. "From east to west," said Edward Everett," and from north to south, a voice of lamentation has gone forth, such as has not echoed through the land since the death of him who was first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." "Living and dead he has been," said Robert C. Winthrop, "the theme of the most eloquent orators, of the most faithful and loving biographers, of the most accomplished essayists of our land." On the 12th of October, 1882, the Centennial of Daniel Webster's birth was celebrated at Marshfield in the presence of the President of the United States and other high officials, and on the 24th and 25th of September, 1901, the one hundredth anniversary of his graduation from Dartmouth College was commemorated. An edition of Mr. Webster's Works, supervised by himself and edited by his friend, Edward Everett, who succeeded him as Secretary of State, was published in 1851.1 The great amount of material at the disposal of the editor could not possibly be confined within the limits prescribed for that edition, and a number of important speeches were delivered and papers written after it had been put forth. These facts made the 1851 edition, though of great value, necessarily incomplete. A half century having transpired since Mr. Webster's death, reasons for excluding anything of value from a collection of his 1 See letters to Edward Everett, "Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster," Vol. II., pp. 355-418. 1 |