guage and the earnestness of his manner gave added force to the excitement of the occasion. So fluent and melodious was his elocution, that his cause naturally begat sympathy. No one had time to deliberate upon his rapid words, or canvass his sweeping and accumulated statements. The dashing nature of the onset; the assurance, almost insolence, of its tone; the serious character and apparent truth of the accusations, confounded almost every hearer. The immediate impression from the speech was most assuredly disheartening to the cause Mr. Webster upheld. Congratulations from almost every quarter were showered upon the speaker. Mr. Benton said, in the full senate, that much as Mr. Hayne had done before to establish his reputation as an orator, a statesman, a patriot, and a gallant son of the south, the efforts of that day would eclipse and surpass the whole. Indeed, the speech was extolled as the greatest effort of the time, or of other times, neither Chatham, nor Burke, nor Fox, had surpassed it, in their palmiest days.

Satisfaction, however, with the speech, even among the friends of the orator, was not unanimous. Some of the senators knew, for they had felt, Mr. Webster's power. They knew the great resources of his mind; the immense range of his intellect; the fertility of his imagination; his copious and fatal logic; the scathing severity of his sarcasm, and his full and electrifying eloquence. Mr. Webster's own feelings with reference to the speech were freely expressed to his friend, Mr. Everett, the evening succeeding Mr. Hayne's closing effort. He regarded the speech as an entirely unprovoked attack upon the north, and, what was of far more importance, as an exposition of a system of politics, which, in Mr. Webster's opinion, went far to change the form of government from that which was established by the constitution, into that which existed under the confederation,-if the latter could be called a government at all. He stated it to be his intention, therefore, to put that theory to rest forever, as far as it could be done

by an argument in the senate-chamber. How grandly he did this, is thus vividly portrayed by Mr. March, an eye-witness, and whose account has been adopted by all historians:

It was on Tuesday, January the twentysixth, 1830,-a day to be hereafter forever memorable in senatorial annals,-that the senate resumed the consideration of Foot's resolution. There was never before in the city, an occasion of so much excitement. To witness this great intellectual contest, multitudes of strangers had for two or

three days previous been rushing into the city, and the hotels overflowed. As early as nine o'clock in the morning, crowds poured into the capitol, in hot haste; at twelve o'clock, the hour of meeting, the senate-chamber,-its galleries, floor, and even the lobbies,-was filled to its utmost capacity. The very stairways were dark with men, who hung on to one another, like bees in a swarm.

The house of representatives was early deserted. An adjournment would hardly have made it emptier. The speaker, it is true, retained his chair, but no business of moment was, or could be, attended to. Members all rushed in, to hear Mr. Webster, and no call of the house, or other parliamentary proceedings, could compel them back. The floor of the senate was so

densely crowded, that persons once in could not get out, nor change their position. In the rear of the vice-president's chair, the crowd was particularly dense; Hon. Dixon H. Lewis, then a representative from Alabama, became wedged in here. From his enormous size, it was impossible for him to move without displacing a vast portion of the multitude; unfortunately, too, for him, him, he was jammed in directly behind the chair of the vice-president, where he could not see, and could hardly hear, the speaker. By slow and laborious effort-pausing occasionally to breathe-he gained one of the windows, which, constructed of painted glass, flanked the chair of the vice-president on either side. Here he paused, unable to make more headway. But determined to see Mr. Webster, as he spoke, with his knife he made a large hole in one of the panes of glass. The courtesy of senators ac

corded to the fairer sex room on the floor -the most gallant of them, their own

seats.

Seldom, if ever, has speaker in this or any other country, had more powerful incentives to exertion; a subject, the determination of which involved the most important interests, and even duration, of the republic; competitors, unequaled in reputation, ability, or position; a name to make still more renowned, or lose forever; and an audience, comprising not only American citizens most eminent in intellectual greatness, but representatives of other nations, where the art of eloquence had flourished for ages.

The very

Mr. Webster perceived, and felt equal to, the destinies of the moment. greatness of the hazard exhilarated him. His spirits rose with the occasion. He awaited the time of onset with a stern and impatient joy. He felt, like the war-horse of the scriptures, who 'paweth in the valley, and rejoiceth in his strength: who goeth on to meet the armed men,-who sayeth among the trumpets, ha, ha! and who smelleth the battle afar off, the thunder of the captains and the shouting.' A confidence in his resources, springing from

no vain estimate of his power, but the legitimate offspring of previous severe mental discipline, sustained and excited him. He had gauged his opponents, his subject, and himself. He was, too, at this period, in the very prime of manhood. He had reached middle age—an era in the life of man, when the faculties, physical or intellectual, may be supposed to attain their fullest organization, and most perfect development. Whatever there was in

him of intellectual energy and vitality, the occasion, his full life and high ambition, might well bring forth.

He never rose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordinary audience more selfpossessed. There was no tremulousness in his voice nor manner; nothing hurried, nothing simulated. The calmness of superior strength was visible everywhere; in countenance, voice, and bearing. A deepseated conviction of the extraordinary character of the emergency, and of his ability to control it, seemed to possess him wholly. If an observer, more than ordinarily keen-sighted, detected at times something like exultation in his eye, he presumed it sprang from the excitement of the moment, and the anticipation of victory.

The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepressible, and universal, that no sooner had the vice-president assumed the chair, than a motion was made and unanimously carried, to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of senatorial action, and to take up immediately the consideration of the resolution.

Mr. Webster rose and addressed the senate. His exordium is known by heart everywhere: "Mr. President, when the mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence; and before we float further, on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may, at least,

be able to form some conjecture where we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution." Calm, resolute, impressive, was this opening utterance.

There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There was a spontaneous, though silent, expression of eager approbation, as the orator concluded these opening remarks. And while the clerk read the resolution, many attempted the impossibility of getting nearer the speaker. Every head was inclined closer towards him, every ear turned in the direction of his voice and that deep, sudden, mysterious silence followed, which always attends fullness of emotion. From the sea of upturned faces before him, the orator beheld his thoughts reflected as from a mirror. The varying countenance, the suffused eye, the earnest smile, and ever-attentive look, assured him of the intense interest excited. If, among his hearers, there were those who affected at first an indifference to his glowing thoughts and fervent periods, the difficult mask was soon laid aside, and profound, undisguised, devoted attention

DANIEL WEBSTER.

followed. In truth, all, sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of themselves, were wholly carried away by the spell of such unexampled forensic eloquence.

Those who had doubted Mr. Webster's ability to cope with and overcome his

opponents were fully satisfied of their error before he had proceeded far in his speech. Their fears soon took another direction. When they heard his sentences of powerful thought, towering in accumulative grandeur, one above the other, as if the orator strove, Titan-like, to reach the very heavens themselves, they were giddy with an apprehension that he would break down in his flight. They dared not believe, that genius, learning,-any intel lectual endowment, however uncommon, that was simply mortal,-could sustain itself long in a career seemingly so perilous. They feared an Icarian fall.

No one, surely, could ever forget, who was present to hear, the tremendous-the awful-burst of eloquence with which the orator apostrophized the old Bay State which Mr. Hayne had so derided, or the tones of deep pathos in which her defense was pronounced: "Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts. 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. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every state, from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie 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 partystrife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it-if folly and madness-if uneasiness under salutary and necessary 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 gather round it; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory,

and on the very spot of its origin." No New England heart but throbbed with vehement, absorbed, irrepressible emotion, as Mr. Webster thus dwelt upon New England sufferings, New England struggles, and New England triumphs, during the war of the revolution. There was scarcely a dry eye in the senate; all hearts were overcome; grave judges, and men grown old in dignified life, turned aside their heads, to conceal the evidences of their emotion.

In one corner of the gallery was clustered a group of Massachusetts men. They had hung from the first moment upon the words of the speaker, with feelings variously but always warmly excited, deepening in intensity as he proceeded. At first, while the orator was going through his exordium, they held their breath and hid their faces, mindful of the fierce attack upon him and New England, and the fearful odds against any one standing up as a champion of the latter; as he went deeper into his speech, they felt easier; when he turned Hayne's flank on "Banquo's ghost"-that famous rhetorical figure used by the South Carolinian, -they breathed freer and fuller. anon, as he alluded to Massachusetts, their feelings were strained to the utmost tension; and when the senator, concluding his passages upon the land of their birth, turned, intentionally or otherwise, his burning eye upon them, tears were falling like rain adown their cheeks.

But

No one who was not present can understand the excitement of the scene. No one, who was, can give an adequate description of it. No word-painting can convey the deep, intense enthusiasm,-the reverential attention, of that vast assembly, nor limner transfer to canvas their earnest, eager, awe-struck countenances. Though language were as subtle and flexible as thought, it still would be impossible to represent the full idea of the occasion.

Much of the instantaneous effect of the speech arose, of course, from the orator's delivery-the tones of his voice, his coun

tenance, and manner. These die mostly with the occasion; they can only be described in general terms. "Of the effectiveness of Mr. Webster's manner, in many parts," says Mr. Everett, himself almost without a peer, as an orator, "it would be in vain to attempt to give any one not present the faintest idea. It has been my fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the greatest living orators on both sides of the water, but I must confess I never heard anything which so campletely realized my conception of what Demosthenes was when he delivered the Oration for the Crown." There could be no higher praise than this. Kean nor Kemble, nor any other masterly delineator of the human passions, ever produced a more powerful impression upon an audience, or swayed so completely their hearts.

No one ever looked the orator, as he did, -in form and feature how like a god! His countenance spake no less audibly than his words. His manner gave new force to his language. As he stood swaying his right arm, like a huge tilt-hammer, up and down, his swarthy countenance lighted up with excitement, he appeared amid the smoke, the fire, the thunder of his eloquence, like Vulcan in his armory forging thoughts for the gods! Time had not thinned nor bleached his hair; it was as dark as the raven's plumage, surmounting his massive brow in ample folds. His eye, always dark and deep-set, enkindled by some glowing thought, shone from beneath his somber, overhanging brow like lights, in the blackness of night, from a sepulchre. No one understood, better than Mr. Webster, the philosophy of dress;-what a powerful auxiliary it is to speech and manner, when harmonizing with them. On this occasion he appeared in a blue coat, a buff vest, black pants, and white cravat, a costume strikingly in keeping with his face and expression.

The human face never wore an expression of more withering, relentless scorn, than when the orator replied to Hayne's allusion to the "murdered coalition,"-a piece of stale political trumpery, well

scorn.

Webster, "the very cast-off slough of a polluted and shameless press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the honorable member to give it dignity or decency, by attempting to elevate it, and introduce it into the senate. He cannot change it from what it is an object of general disgust and On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, down to the place where it lies. itself!" He looked, as he spoke these words, as if the thing he alluded to was too mean for scorn itself, and the sharp, stinging enunciation, made the words still more scathing. The audience seemed relieved,—so crushing was the expression of his face which they held on to, as 'twere, spell-bound,-when he turned to other

topics.

But the good-natured yet provoking irony with which he described the imaginary though life-like scene of direct collision between the marshaled army of South Carolina under General Hayne on the one side, and the officers of the United States on the other, nettled his opponent even more than his severer satire; it seemed so ridiculously true. With his true Southern blood, Hayne inquired, with some degree of emotion, if the gentleman from Massachusetts intended any personal imputation by such remarks? To which Mr. Webster replied, with perfect good humor, $6 Assuredly not-just the reverse!"

The variety of incident during the speech, and the rapid fluctuation of passions, kept the audience in continual expectation, and ceaseless agitation. The speech was a complete drama of serious, comic, and pathetic scenes; and though a large portion of it was strictly argumentative-an exposition of constitutional law, -yet, grave as such portion necessarily must be, severely logical, and abounding in no fancy or episode, it engrossed, throughout, undivided attention.

The swell of his voice and its solemn roll struck upon the ears of the enraptured

waves upon the shore of the far-resounding sea. The Miltonic grandeur of his words was the fit expression of his great thoughts, and raised his hearers up to his theme; and his voice, exerted to its utmost power, penetrated every recess or corner of the senate-penetrated even the anterooms and stairways, as, in closing, he pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words of solemn significance: "When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original luster, not a stripe erased nor polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as, "What is all this worth?"

-nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards:" but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every American heart, "LIBERTY AND UNION, NOW AND FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE!"

The speech was over, but the tones of the orator still lingered upon the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the close, retained their positions. Everywhere around seemed forgetfulness of all but the orator's presence and words. There never was a deeper stillness; silence could almost have heard itself, it was so supernaturally still. The feeling was too overpowering, to allow expression by voice or hand. It was as if one was in a trance, all motion paralyzed. But the descending hammer. of the chair awoke them, with a start; and with one universal, long drawn, deep