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WEBSTER.

DANIEL WEBSTER was born in the town of Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782. Owing to his father's moderate means, his own rather delicate health, but more perhaps to the crude and exceedingly elementary character of the periodic schools of the day, his early instruction was very meagre and imperfect. At fifteen, however, he entered Dartmouth College, whence he graduated in 1797. While here, besides evincing fine abilities as a scholar, he gave no mean promise of the public and distinguished character of his future career, having at this time pronounced two orations which, considering his youth, were notable.

Immediately on leaving college, Webster began the study of law in his native town, which he completed while in the office of Hon. Christopher Gore, in Boston, and was admitted to the bar in 1805.

Webster began his long and illustrious career of statesmanship in 1813, as a member of the House of Representatives from Rockingham county, Massachusetts. He continued in this capacity until 1817, when he withdrew from public life for a space of six years. He was then returned to Congress from Boston.

The ability he manifested through two terms of service as representative, as a profound and patriotic statesman, and as a clear, logical and eloquent debater, was, in 1827, rewarded by the still higher distinction of United States Senator. In this capacity he spent twelve of the most eventful and glorious years of his life. His speeches on Foot's Reso lution, in the second of which occurs the most memorable of Congressional efforts in oratory in this country, if not in modern times-his reply to Hayne; his exposition of the principles and genius of the Constitution, in opposition to

the doctrines of Calhoun; his views on national finance and on slavery-these were the momentous concerns which crowded themselves into the life of the great Senator.

In the summer of 1839, Webster visited England, where he was everywhere received with marked consideration; his presence fully corroborating the lofty reputation, which, as a statesman, a jurist, and an orator, had long preceded him.

When General Harrison became President, in 1841, Webster was appointed Secretary of State, and continued as such "through evil report as well as through good report" until 1843.

In 1845, Webster was again returned to the Senate, and remained there until 1850, when he was a second time called to the Department of State. This was the last call his admiring fellow-citizens were permitted to make upon the great statesman; for death, entering the peaceful precincts of his lovely farm-home at Marshfield, bade him, on Sunday morning, October 24, 1852, attend a higher than earthly summons.

Webster's style is "remarkable for great clearness of statement. It is singularly emphatic. It is impressive rather than brilliant, and occasionally rises to absolute grandeur. It is evidently formed on the higher English models; and the reader conjectures his love of Milton from the noble simplicity of his language, and fondness for sublime rather than apt figures. Clearness of statement, vigor of reasoning, and a faculty of making a question plain to the understanding by the mere terms in which it is presented, are the traits which uniformly distinguish his writings, evident alike in a diplomatic note, a legislative debate, and an historical discourse.

"His dignity of expression, breadth of view, and force of thought, realize the ideal of a republican statesman, in regard, at least, to natural endowments; and his presence and manner, in the prime of his life, were analogous. Independent of their logical and rhetorical merit, these writings

may be deemed invaluable from the nationality of their tone and spirit. They awaken patriotic reflection and sentiment, and are better adapted to warn, to enlighten, and to cheer the consciousness of the citizen, than any American works, of a didactic kind, yet produced."*

Inasmuch as Webster's oratory ranged over three great fields of activity-the bar, the legislative hall, and the public rostrum—we will aim to present such selections from his speeches as will demonstrate his mastery in each of these directions.

Of his popular efforts we present an extract from his oration on The Completion of Bunker Hill Monument, delivered on Bunker Hill, June 17, 1843. "The thrill of admiration," says Edward Everett, "which ran through the assembled thousands, when, at the commencement of his discourse on that occasion, Mr. Webster apostrophized the monument itself as the mute orator of the day, has been spoken of by those who had the good fortune to be present as an emotion beyond the power of language to describe. The gesture, the look, the tone of the speaker, as he turned to the majestic shaft, seemed to invest it with a mysterious life; and men held their breath as if a solemn voice was about to come down from its towering summit."

THE Bunker Hill Monument is finished. Here it stands. Fortunate in the high natural eminence on which it is placed, higher, infinitely higher, in its objects and purpose, it rises over the laud and over the sea; and, visible, at their homes, to three hundred thousand of the people of Massachusetts, it stands a memorial of the last, and a monitor to the present and to all succeeding generations. I have spoken of the loftiness of its purpose. If it had been without any other design than the creation of a work of art, the granite of which it is composed would have slept in its native bed. It has a purpose, and that purpose gives it its character. That purpose enrobes it with dignity and moral grandeur. That well-known purpose it is which causes us to look up to it with a feeling of awe.

*A Sketch of American Literature, by H. T. Tuckerman.

It is itself the orator of this occasion. It is not from my lips, it could not be from any human lips, that that strain of eloquence is this day to flow most competent to move and excite the vast multitudes around me. The powerful speaker stands motionless before us. It is a plain shaft. It bears no inscription, fronting to the rising sun, from which the future antiquary shall wipe the dust. Nor does the rising sun cause tones of music to issue from its summit. But at the rising of the sun, and at the setting of the sun; in the blaze of noonday, and beneath the milder effulgence of lunar light; it looks, it speaks, it acts, to the full comprehension of every American mind, and the awakening of glowing enthusiasm in every American heart.

To-day it speaks to us. Its future auditories will be the successive generations of men, as they rise up before it and gather around it. Its speech will be of patriotism and courage; of civil and religious liberty; of free government; of the moral improvement and elevation of mankind; and of the immortal memory of those, who, with heroic devotion, have sacrificed their lives for their country. . .

Banners and badges, processions and flags, announce to us, that amidst this uncounted throng are thousands of natives of New England now residents in other States. Welcome, ye kin dred names, with kindred blood! From the broad savannas of the South, from the newer regions of the West, from amidst the hundreds of thousands of men of Eastern origin who cultivate the rich valley of the Genesee, or live along the chain of the lakes, from the mountains of Pennsylvania, and from the thronged cities of the coast, welcome, welcome! Wherever else you may be strangers, here you are all at home. You assemble at this shrine of liberty, near the family altars at which your earliest devotions were paid to Heaven; near to the temples of worship first entered by you, and near to the schools and colleges in which your education was received. You come hither with a glorious ancestry of liberty. You bring names which are on the rolls of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill. You come, some of you, once more to be embraced by an aged Revolutionary father, or to receive another, perhaps a last, blessing, bestowed in love and tears, by a mother, yet surviving to witness and to enjoy your prosperity and happiness.

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Few topics are more inviting, or more fit for philosophical dis

cussion, than the influence of the New World upon the Old. America has furnished to the world the character of Washington. And if our American institutions had done nothing else, that alone would have entitled them to the respect of mankind.

Washington! "First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen!" Washington is all our own! The enthusiastic veneration and regard in which the people of the United States hold him prove them to be worthy of such a countryman; while his reputation abroad reflects the highest honor on his country. I would cheerfully put the question to-day to the intelligence of Europe and the world, what character of the century, upon the whole, stands out in the relief of history, most pure, most respectable, most sublime; and I doubt not, that, by a suffrage approaching to unanimity, the answer would be Washington!

The structure now standing before us, by its uprightness, its solidity, its durability, is no unfit emblem of his character. His public virtues and public principles were as firm as the earth on which it stands; his personal motives, as pure as the serene heaven in which its summit is lost. But, indeed, though a fit, it is an inadequate emblem. Towering high above the column which our hands have builded, beheld, not by the inhabitants of a single city or single State, but by all the families of man, ascends the colossal grandeur of the character and life of Washington. In all the constituents of the one, in all the acts of the other, in all its titles to immortal love, admiration, and renown, it is an American production. It is the embodiment and vindication of our Transatlantic liberty.

Born upon our soil, of parents also born upon it; never for a moment having had sight of the Old World; instructed, according to the modes of his time, only in the spare, plain, but wholesome elementary knowledge which our institutions provide for the children of the people; growing up beneath and penetrated by the genuine influences of American society; living from infancy to manhood and age amidst our expanding, but not luxurious civilization; partaking in our great destiny of labor, our long contest with unreclaimed nature and uncivilized man, our agony of glory, the war of Independence, our great victory of peace, the formation of the Union, and the establishment of the Constitution; he is all, all our own! Washington is ours! That rowded and glorious life,

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