time may judge to have savored of the mere politician and the partisan. We, from our near proximity, may see, or think we see, the ill-shapen rocks and the unseemly caverns which disfigure the sides of these mighty Alpine peaks. Future ages will only descry their ever-gilded summits "Who, then, shall lightly say that Fame When, but for these our mighty dead, Where memory of the mighty dead, The brightest rays of cheering shed Sir, I shall not attempt here to even briefly review the public life or delineate the true character of Daniel Webster. That public life, extending through more than forty years of the growth and progress of our country, will doubtless be sketched by those of his compeers who have shared with him in his public service. That character, too, will best be drawn by those intimate friends who knew him best, and who enjoyed the most favorable opportunities for observing the operations of his giant mind. In looking at what he has achieved, not only in the fields of legislation, but in those of literature and jurisprudence, I may say he has left a monument of his industry and genius of which his countrymen may well be proud. His speeches in the Senate and before the assemblies of the people, and his arguments before our highest courts, taken together, form the most valuable contribution to American literature, language, and oratory which it has been the good fortune of any individual to have yet made. Were I to attempt it, I should be unable to determine on which of the varied scenes of his labors his genius and talents stood pre-eminent. His argument in the Dartmouth College case has ever been regarded as a model of forensic debate, exhibiting the rare combination of the dry logic of the law with the tender, the beautiful, and the sublime. His address before the Historical Society of New York not only exhibited a thorough acquaintance with ancient and modern literature, but was itself a gem whose brilliancy will never cease to attract, even by the side of the great lights of the literary world. The speech in the Senate in reply to Hayne, by its powerful argumentation, its sublimity, and patriotic fervor, placed him at once, by the common consent of mankind, in the front rank of orators. But I cannot on this occasion review a life replete with incidents at once evincing the workings of a great mind, and marking important events in the history of the country. I can here only speak of his labors collectively. They were the result of great effort-grand in their conception, effective in their execution, and permanent in their influences. As a son of his native New England, I am proud to refer back to the plain and unostentatious manners, the rigid discipline, and the early and thorough mental training to be found among the yeomanry of that part of our country, as contributing primarily to the eminent success of Mr. Webster in the business of his life. Born, reared, and educated among the granite hills of New Hampshire, although his attachments to the place of his birth were strong to the last, yet, upon the broad theatre upon which he was called to act his part as a public man, his sympathies and his patriotism were bounded only by the confines of the whole republic. Although, in common with many of us, I differed in opinion from the late Secretary of State upon grave political questions, yet, with the great mass of our fellowcitizens, I acknowledge his patriotism, and the force and ability with which he sustained his own opinions. However we may view those opinions, one thing will be conceded by all his feelings were thoroughly American, and his aim the good of his country. In his whole public life, and by his greatest efforts as an orator, he has left deeply impressed on the American mind one great truth, never to be forgotten the preservation of American liberty depends upon the support of the Constitution and the Union of the States. To have thus linked his name indissolubly with the perpetuity of our institutions is enough of glory for any citizen of the republic. X. MR. CHANDLER said: Mr. SPEAKER: The selection of the present time to make special and official reference to the death of Mr. Webster may be regarded as fortunate and judicious. An earlier moment would have exposed our eulogies to those exaggerations which, while they do justice in some measure to the feelings whence they spring, are no proofs of sound judgment in the utterer, nor sources of honor to their lamented object. The great departed owe little to the record of their worth, which is made in the midst of sudden emotions, when the freshness of personal intercourse mingles with recollections of public virtues, and the object observed through the tears of recent sorrow, bears with it the prismatic hues which distort its fair proportions, and hide that simplicity which is the characteristic of true greatness. And equally just is it to the dead whom we would honor, and to our feelings which would promote that honor, that we have not postponed the season to a period when time would so have mitigated our just regret as to direct our eulogies only to those lofty points of Mr. Webster's character which strike but from afar; which owe their distinction less to their affinities with public sympathy than to their elevation above ordinary ascent and ordinary computation. That distance, too, in a government like ours, is dangerous to a just homage to the distinguished dead, however willing may be the survivor; for smaller objects intervene, and by proximity hide the proportions which we survey from afar, and diminish that just appreciation which is necessary to the honorable praise that is to perpetuate public fame. Mr. Webster was a distinguished statesman,-tried, sir, in nearly all the various positions which, in our Government, the civilian is called on to fill, and in all these places the powers of a gifted mind, strengthened and improved by a practical education, were the great means by which he achieved success, and patriotism the motive of their devotion. With all Mr. Webster's professional greatness, with all his unrivalled powers in the Senate, with his great distinction as a diplomatist, he was fond of credit as a scholar; and his attainments, if not of the kind which gives eminence to merely literary men, were such as gave richness and terseness to his own composition, and vigor and attraction to his conversation. His mind was moulded to the strong conception of the epic poet, rather than the gentle phrase of the didactic; and his preference for natural scenery seemed to partake of his literary taste-it was for the strong, the elevated, the grand. His childhood and youth joyed in the rough sides of the mountains of New Hampshire, and his age found a delightful repose on the wild shores of Massachusetts Bay. He was a lover of Nature, not in her holiday suit of field and flower, but in those wild exhibitions of broken coast and isolated hills, that seem to stir the mind into activity, and provoke it into emulation of the grandeur with which it is surrounded. Yet, sir, Mr. Webster had with him much of the gentleness which gives beauty to social life, and dignity and attraction to the domestic scene, just as the rugged coast is often as placid as the gentlest lake, and the summit of the roughest hill is frequently bathed in the softest sunlight, and clad in flowers of the most delicate hues. Mr. Webster's person was strongly indicative of the character of his mind; not formed for the lighter graces, but graceful in the noblest uses of manhood; remarkable in the stateliness of his movements, and dignified in the magnificence of its repose. Mr. Webster could scarcely pass unnoticed, even where unknown. There was that in his mien which attracted attention, and awakened interest; and his head, (whether his countenance was lighted by a smile, such as only he could give, or fixed by contemplation, such as only he could indulge) seemed an "arch'd and ponderous roof, By its own weight made steadfast and immovable, With all Mr. Webster's lofty gifts and attainments, he was ambitious. Toiling upward from the base of the political ladder, it is not to be denied that he desired to set his foot upon the utmost round. This could not have been a thirst for power: nothing of a desire for the exercise of absolute authority could have been in that aspiration; for the only absolute power left (if any be left) by the Constitution in the Executive of this nation is "MERCY." In Mr. Webster it was the distinction which the place conferred, and the sphere of usefulness it presented. He regarded it as the crowning glory of his public life-a glory earned by his devotion of unparalleled talents and unsurpassed statemanship. This ambition in Mr. Webster was modesty. He could not see, as others saw and felt, that no political elevation was necessary to the completion of his fame or the distinction of his statesmanship. It was not for him to understand that the last round of political preferment, honorable as it is, and made more honorable by the lustre which purity of motive, great talents, and devoted patriotism are now shedding down upon it,-he could not understand that preferment, honorable as it is, was unnecessary to him; that it could add nothing to his political stature, nor enlarge the horizon of his comprehensive views. It is the characteristic of men of true greatness, of exalted talents, to comprehend the nature and power of the gifts they possess. That, sir, is a homage to God, who bestows them. But it is also their misfortune to be dissatisfied with the means and opportunities they have possessed to exercise those gifts to great national purposes. This is merely distrust of themselves. The world, sir, comprehends the uses of the talents of great statesmen, and gives them credit for their masterly powers, without asking that those powers should be tried in every position in which public men may be placed. I see not in all the character, gifts, and attainments of Mr. Webster, any illustration of the British orator's exclamation, relative to "the shadows which we are;" nor |