personal or political trial; and melancholy never, in health nor even in sickness, spread a pall over his spirits.

It must have been very early that he acquired that just estimate of his own powers which was the basis of a selfreliance which all the world saw and approved, and which, while it betrayed no feature of vanity, none but a superficial observer could have mistaken for pride or arrogance.

DANIEL WEBSTER was no sophist. With a talent for didactic instruction which might have excused dogmatism, he never lectured on the questions of morals that are agitated in the schools. But he seemed, nevertheless, to have acquired a philosophy of his own, and to have made it the rule and guide of his life. That philosophy consisted in improving his powers and his tastes, so that he might appreciate whatever was good and beautiful in nature and art, and attain to whatever was excellent in conduct. He had accurate perceptions of the qualities and relations of things. He overvalued' nothing that was common, and undervalued nothing that was useful, or even ornamental. His lands, his cattle and equipage, his dwelling, library, and apparel, his letters, arguments, and orations -every thing that he had, every thing that he made, and every thing that he did-was, as far as possible, fit, complete, perfect. He thought decorous forms necessary for preserving whatever was substantial or valuable in politics. and morals, and even in religion. In his regard, order was the first law, and peace the chief blessing, of earth, as they are of heaven. Therefore, while he desired justice and loved liberty, he reverenced law as the first divinity of states and of society.

DANIEL WEBSTER was, indeed, ambitious; but his ambition was generally subordinate to conventional forms, and always to the Constitution. He aspired to place and preferment, but not for the mere exercise of political power, and still less for pleasurable indulgences; and only for occasions to save or serve his country, and for the fame which such noble actions might bring. Who will censure such ambition? Who had greater genius subjected to severer discipline? What other motives than those of ambition could have brought that genius into activity under

that discipline, and sustained that activity so equally under ever-changing circumstances so long? His ambition never fell off into presumption. He was, on the contrary, content with performing all practical duties, even in common affairs, in the best possible manner; and he never chafed under petty restraints from those above, nor malicious annoyances from those around him. If ever any man had intellectual superiority which could have excused a want of deference due to human authority, or skepticism concerning that which was divine, he was such a one. Yet he was, nevertheless, unassuming and courteous, here and elsewhere, in the public councils; and there was, I think, never a time in his life when he was not an unquestioning believer in that religion which offers to the meek the inheritance of the heavenly kingdom.

DANIEL WEBSTER's mind was not subtle, but it was clear. It was surpassingly logical in the exercise of induction, and equally vigorous and energetic in all its movements; and yet he possessed an imagination so strong that if it had been combined with even a moderated enthusiasm of temper, would have overturned the excellent balance of his powers.

The civilian rises in this, as in other republics, by the practice of eloquence; and so DANIEL WEBSTER became an orator-the first of orators.

Whatever else concerning him has been controverted by anybody, the fifty thousand lawyers of the United States, interested to deny his pretensions, conceded to him an unapproachable supremacy at the bar. How did he win that high place? Where others studied laboriously, he meditated intensely. Where others appealed to the prejudices and passions of courts and juries, he addressed only their understandings. Where others lost themselves among the streams, he ascended to the fountain. While they sought the rules of law among conflicting precedents, he found them in the eternal principles of reason and justice.

But it is conceding too much to the legal profession to call DANIEL WEBSTER a lawyer. Lawyers speak for clients and their interests-he seemed always to be speaking for his country and for truth. So he rose imperceptibly above

his profession; and while yet in the Forum, he stood before the world a Publicist. In this felicity, he resembled, while he surpassed, Erskine, who taught the courts at Westminster the law of moral responsibility; and he approached Hamilton, who educated the courts at Washington in the Constitution of their country and the philosophy of govern

ment.

An undistinguishable line divides this high province of the Forum from the Senate, to which his philosophy and eloquence were perfectly adapted. Here, in times of stormy agitation and bewildering excitement, when as yet the Union of these States seemed not to have been cemented and consolidated, and its dissolution seemed to hang, if not on the immediate result of the debate, at least upon the popular passion that that result must generate, DANIEL WEBSTER put forth his mightiest efforts-confessedly the greatest ever put forth here or on this continent. Those efforts produced marked effect on the Senate; they soothed the public mind, and became enduring lessons of instruction to our countrymen on the science of constitutional law, and the relative powers and responsibilities of the Government, and the rights and duties of the States and of citizens.

Tried by ancient definitions, DANIEL WEBSTER was not an orator. He studied no art and practised no action. Nor did he form himself by any admitted model. He had neither the directness and vehemence of Demosthenes, nor the fulness nor flow of Cicero, nor the intenseness of Milton, nor the magnificence of Burke. It was happy for him that he had not. The temper and tastes of his age and country required eloquence different from all these; and they found it in the pure logic and the vigorous yet massive rhetoric which constituted the style of DANIEL WEB

STER.

DANIEL WEBSTER, although a statesman, did not aim to be either a popular or a parliamentary leader. He left common affairs and questions to others, and reserved himself for those great and infrequent occasions which see to involve the prosperity or the continuance of the public. On these occasions he rose above partis.

fluences and alliances, and gave his counsels earnestly, and with impassioned solemnity, and always with an unaffected reliance upon the intelligence and virtue of his countrymen.

The first revolutionary assembly that convened in Boston promulgated the principle of the revolution of 1688"Resistance to unjust laws is obedience to God;" and it became the watchword throughout the colonies. Under that motto the colonies dismembered the British Empire, and erected the American Republic. At an early day, it seemed to DANIEL WEBSTER that the habitual cherishing of that principle, after its great work had been consummated, threatened to subvert, in its turn, the free and beneficent Constitution, which afforded the highest attainable security against the passage of unjust laws. He addressed himself therefore assiduously, and almost alone, to what seemed to him the duty of calling the American people back from revolutionary theories to the formation of habits of peace, order, and submission to authority. He inculcated the duty of submission by States and citizens to all laws passed within the province of constitutional authority, and of absolute reliance on constitutional remedies for the correction of all errors and the redress of all injustice. This was the political gospel of DANIEL Webster. He preached it in season and out of season, boldly, constantly, with the zeal of an apostle, and with the devotion, if there were need, of a martyr. It was full of saving influences while he lived, and those influences will last so long as the Constitution and the Union shall endure.

I do not dwell on DANIEL WEBSTER'S exercise of administrative functions. It was marked by the same ability that distinguished all his achievements in other fields of duty. It was at the same time eminently conservative of peace, and of the great principles of constitutional liberty, on which the republican institutions of his country were founded. But while those administrative services benefited his country, and increased his fame, we all felt, nevertheless, that his proper and highest place was here, where there was field and scope for his philosophy and his eloquence-here, among the equal representatives of equal

States, which were at once to be held together, and to be moved on in the establishment of a continental power controlling all the American States, and balancing those of the Eastern world; and we could not but exclaim, in the words of the Roman orator, when we saw him leave the legislative councils to enter on the office of administration

"Quantis in angustiis, vestra gloria se dilitari velit."

V.

MR. STOCKTON.

Mr. PRESIDENT: I was prevented from coming to Washington until this morning. After travelling all night, I hastened here to take my seat, wholly unapprized of the intention of the Senator from Massachusetts to introduce the resolutions now before the Senate.

It would, therefore, not become me, nor the solemnity of the occasion, to mingle, unprepared as I needs must be, my voice in the eloquent lamentation which does honor to the Senate, for any other purpose than merely briefly to express my grief-my sorrow-my heartfelt, unaffected sorrow for the death of Daniel Webster.

Senators, I have known and loved Daniel Webster for thirty years. What wonder, then, I sorrow? But now that I am on my feet for that purpose-and the Senate, who knew and loved him too, are my listeners-how am I to express that sorrow? I cannot do it. It cannot be done. Oh! sir, all words, in moments such as these, when love or grief seek utterance, are vain and frigid.

Senators, I can even now hardly realize the event-that Daniel Webster is DEAD-that he does not "still live."

I did hope that God-who has watched over this Republic-who can do all things-"who hung the Earth on nothing"-who so endowed the mind of Daniel Websterwould still longer have upheld its frail tenement, and kept