sports of the sea; and we meet on every side the watchful and devoted friends whom no frequency of disappointment can discourage, and whom even the death of their great patron can not all at once disengage from efforts which know no balancing of probabilities, nor reckoning of cost, to secure his elevation to the first honors of the Republic. Who, that was even confessedly provincial, was ever so identified with anything local as Daniel Webster was with the spindles of Lowell, and the quarries of Quincy; with Faneuil Hall, Bunker Hill, Forefathers' Day, Plymouth Rock, and whatever else belonged to Massachusetts? And yet, who that was most truly national has ever so sublimely celebrated, or so touchingly com mended to our reverent affection, our broad and ever-broadening continental home; its endless rivers, majestic mountains, and capacious lakes; its inimitable and indescribable constitution; its cherished and growing capital; its aptly-conceived and expressive flag, and its triumphs by land and sea; and its immortal founders, heroes, and martyrs! How manifest it was, too, that, unlike those who arc impatient of slow but sure progress, he loved his country, not for something greater or higher that he desired or hoped she might be, but just for what she was, and as she was already, regardless of future change. No, sir; believe me, they err widely who say that Daniel Webster was cold and passionless. It is true that he had little enthusiasm; but he was nevertheless earnest and sincere, as well as calm; and therefore he was both discriminating and comprehensive in his affections. We recognise his likeness in the portrait drawn by a Roman pencil: "Who with nice discernment knows Of senators, of generals sent to war." Daniel Webster was cheerful, and on becoming occasions joyous, and even mirthful; but he was habitually engaged in profound studies on great affairs. He was, moreover, constitutionally fearful of the dangers of popular passion and prejudice: and so, in public walk, conversation, and debate, he was grave and serious, even to solemnity; yet he never desponded in the dark est hours of 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 self-reliance 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-everything that he had, everything that he made, everything 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 perVOL. III.-8 forming 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 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 majestic 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 government. 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 fullness and 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 Webster. 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 seemed to involve the prosperity or the continuance of the republic. On these occasions he rose above partisan influences 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 principles 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 eloquencehere, 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 augustiis, vestra gloria se dilatari velit.” |