USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 4 > Part 13
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Because he did not wish slavery to spread into other sections of the country, Webster did virtually everything
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DANIEL WEBSTER, STATESMAN
in his power to block the annexation of Texas. With the Mexican War, which followed, he was, like most of the Whigs, rather unsympathetic. He was unavoidably absent from the Senate when Congress declared, in May, 1846, that "a state of war exists" between Mexico and the United States. He voted all needful supplies for the troops, but was un- reservedly opposed to the acquisition of any Mexican terri- tory. By one of life's tragic ironies his second son, Edward, enlisted, and later died near Mexico City from disease brought on by exposure. A few days later Webster's only surviving daughter, Mrs. Appleton, died of tuberculosis; and the two were buried in the same week, in May, 1848. Only one son, Fletcher, was now left to him, besides his second wife, Caro- line Le Roy, whom he had married in December, 1829.
Webster's innate conservatism was accountable for his dis- like of what he considered to be fanatical abolitionists. He listened to their political creed and realized that they were quite willing to let the Union be destroyed if only slavery could be eliminated, he was horrified. How could he sympa- thize with a man like Garrison, who wrote, "I am for the abolition of slavery, therefore for the dissolution of the Union" ? Lodge maintained that Webster missed a golden opportunity by not heading the newly-formed Freesoil party in 1848 and separating from the Whigs on a moral principle. To have done so would have been to sacrifice all his most cherished convictions. As a practical statesman, he was work- ing for the preservation of the Union, and he was the last man to assume the leadership of a group of radical thinkers, who seemed to him to be guilty of incipient treason.
Once more, in 1848, Webster was not averse to receiving the Whig nomination for the Presidency, and there were moments when the prize seemed almost in his grasp. Some of his close friends, without telling him of their intentions, turned unexpectedly to General Taylor, a war hero with no political enemies. In the convention Webster, on the first ballot, received twenty-two votes, but that was his maximum strength.
When Taylor was named, Webster was in a quandary. In September, 1848, at Marshfield, he confessed that the nomi- nation was "one not fit to be made" ; but he added that, be-
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tween Taylor and Cass, the Democratic candidate, he was bound to choose the former. Taylor was victorious, and Webster returned to the Senate, hoping, if we are to judge from his letters, that he might once more become Secretary of State. Instead he was about to confront, as an old man, the most serious crisis of his life.
SLAVERY CRISIS OF 1850
The additional territory acquired by the United States through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the dramatic rush of thousands of American citizens to California after the discovery of gold in the Sacramento valley naturally reopened the question as to how far slavery was to spread beyond the Mississippi. In January, 1850, when the tension between North, and South was ominous, Clay called upon his old com- rade, Webster, and suggested to him a possible plan of com- promise. Webster, who was fearful of civil war, indicated his general approval of the proposition, and within a week the details were before the Senate.
California was to be admitted as a free state; territorial governments were to be organized in the newly acquired sections without any reference to slavery; the slave trade- but not slavery itself-was to be abolished in the District of Columbia ; and the Fugitive Slave Act was to be more sternly enforced. With the purpose and theory of these proposals Webster could sympathize, for they did constitute a possible basis of agreement among reasonable men, whether living in Massachusetts or in South Carolina. The three "elder states- men"-Clay, Calhoun, and Webster-representing different sections and opinions, had lived through more than one slavery crisis, and they were convinced that the situation in 1850 was more disturbing than it had ever been before. Clay immedi- ately made a formal argument in favor of the compromise measures ; Calhoun's statement of the rights of the South was read for him on the floor of the Senate by Senator Mason. Then Webster, the youngest of the triumvirate, rose on March 7 to deliver the speech which he preferred to entitle "The Constitution and the Union."
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SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH (1850)
Under its more common title of "The Seventh of March Speech," this declaration was, and has been, the subject of heated controversy. In substance it was an unrhetorical and dispassionate statement of certain facts and certain conclu- sions regarding slavery. It did not stress the moral iniquity of slavery-that Webster took for granted. It dwelt chiefly on the constitutional aspects of the question. His words were actually much like those which he had used in earlier utter- ances, and he stood before the country once more as the advocate of the doctrine that the Union must, at any cost, be preserved.
The most vulnerable spot in this speech was his justification of the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law. But Webster was aware that a compromise, in order to be accepted, must in some degree satisfy both sides to a dispute; and he also knew that the South was within its constitutional rights in in- sisting on such a concession. It is doubtless true that he argued like a lawyer resorting to technicalities, but he had a noble end in view.
One cannot measure or estimate men's motives with abso- lute certainty. Nevertheless Webster's previous record and his stainless public life ought to permit us to accept the more charitable of two interpretations. The speech in its entirety can be explained on the basis of his love for his country; and Rhodes, after a dispassionate investigation of all the evidence, gave as his final judgment that the mainspring of the action of Clay and Webster was "unselfish devotion to what they be- lieved to be the good of their country." With this verdict most unprejudiced historians now agree.
WEBSTER'S RESPONSIBILITY (1850)
From the standpoint of practical statesmanship, Webster's conduct was sagacious. That there was, in 1850, real danger of civil conflict cannot be doubted. Men like Rhett and Cheves, of South Carolina, Stephens, of Georgia, and Yancey, of Mississippi, had expressed themselves as favorable to seces- sion; and the Compromise blocked their aims and hopes. The
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CLOSE OF PUBLIC CAREER
war was postponed for ten years, until the North was pro- portionately stronger than the South and better equipped for the struggle. Webster could not, of course, have foreseen the tremendous influx of Germans and Irish to the Northern States during the next decade, but he must have realized that time was on the side of those who opposed slavery extension. When war finally broke out, many conservative thinkers adhered to the North with the feeling that every practicable concession had been granted; and this would not have been the case in 1850. The Civil War was won, not because people were ready to lay down their lives for the abolition of slavery, but because they could not see that Union severed which Daniel Webster had done so much to keep intact.
Webster's speech made a far greater sensation than he had expected. He was praised and denounced intemperately by extremists. Whittier wrote his epitaph in "Ichabod":
"From those great eyes The soul has fled; When faith is lost, when honor dies, The man is dead."
Sumner declared that he had placed himself "in the dark list of apostates" ; and the unstable Theodore Parker compared Webster's conduct to "the act of Benedict Arnold."
However, that conservative Boston from which he drew his strength took another stand, and a testimonial from eight hundred of the substantial citizens, including Curtis, Ticknor, Prescott, and Choate, thanked him for his "broad, national, and patriotic views." The various items of the compromise plan were passed one by one during the summer. But, before this work was accomplished President Taylor died, and Web- ster on July 23, 1850, accepted the post of Secretary of State under President Fillmore.
CLOSE OF THE PUBLIC CAREER (1850-1852)
During his second incumbency in the Department of State, Webster was responsible for the Hülsemann letter (December 21, 1850), in which he administered a sharp rebuke to the
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Austrian representative in this country and vindicated the American policy of gathering information in Hungary regard- ing the status of its revolutionary government. Although Webster admitted that his communication was "boastful and rough," its tone was justified by Hülsemann's previous im- pertinence. When Kossuth, the Hungarian liberal leader, came to America in December, 1851, Webster exhibited con- summate tact in greeting him warmly without doing anything to cause a breach with Austria.
In 1852 his old rival, Henry Clay, was out of the presi- dential race. Webster, although he was over three-score and ten, was not without hope of securing the Whig nomination. Once again, however, as in 1848, a military hero, General Winfield Scott, was brought forward, and Webster could command only twenty-nine votes on the first ballot. In vain did Rufus Choate plead with all his magnetic eloquence for the cause of his friend. The rank and file of the Whigs did not want "old Webster" as their candidate. In the heat of a Baltimore June, General Scott was nominated; and Webster returned to his desk, a disappointed man, who ad- vised his followers to vote for Franklin Pierce, the Demo- cratic standard bearer. There is something infinitely tragic in the spectacle of Webster lamenting the loss of an honor which came so unexpectedly and easily to Pierce. Never again was Daniel Webster to be engaged in practical politics.
WEBSTER'S PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
Almost from his infancy Webster was a lover of the out- doors ; and he spent as many hours as possible in the open air. He climbed Mount Washington, not far from the Old Man of the Mountain, whom he was thought to resemble. He liked to hunt and sail a boat; and he cast a fly into such widely different waters as the trout brooks of Cape Cod and the Great Falls of the Potomac. He enjoyed nature, and had a scientific knowledge of various species of flora and fauna. In 1824, after he was well established in Boston, he com- menced spending his summers at an estate in the town of Marshfield, owned by Captain Thomas, from whom, in 1831, he bought the farmhouse and land. Gradually he acquired
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PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS
adjoining property until he owned more than two thousand acres and created a fruit and stock farm which was the envy of his neighbors. Into its maintenance and improvement Webster poured the fees from his law cases, attending personally to many of the details of management. When his duties at Washington were over each spring, Webster, usually racked by his chronic hay fever, would return to the peace of Marshfield, with its pure air and aromatic pine forests.
Webster reveled in the life of a gentleman farmer. He was up early, before five o'clock, "to test the freshness of the early dawn," feeding his prize cattle with ears of corn from his own hand and going out often with the laborers into the fields. Until a year or two before his death he was a crack shot, supplying his friends frequently with duck and woodcock. He kept a well-equipped fishing boat in a harbor only a few hundred yards from his house. Like Walter Scott, whom he resembled in other respects, Webster was most hospitable, and there were always guests under his roof. He took pride in playing the role of lord of the manor, and no one could have assumed it more gracefully. Part of the day he spent in his library; but in the evening he gave him- self up to his visitors, telling stories and occasionally making a fourth in a rubber of whist. He had a keen sense of humor which was shown in impromptu verses; and in his more exuberant moods he could be heard singing and shouting about the house.
Webster had an adequate appreciation of his own pictur- esqueness and rather enjoyed the impression which he created. In his later days he was often followed in the street by an admiring throng, and at the inauguration in 1848 of Edward Everett as President of Harvard College it was Webster who drew the attention of the spectators. When offended, he could be very haughty, and some dramatic stories are told of his arrogance to lesser men who had been so unfortunate as to offend him. On state occasions he liked to appear in a court dress, with gigantic brass buttons and a beautifully starched neck-cloth.
Webster did not need gorgeous attire to make him the center of interest. He walked this earth, as someone has said, "clad in the panoply of an imperial manhood." Carlyle
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described his eyes as "dull anthracite furnaces, needing only to be blown." He was called by Sydney Smith "a small cathedral all by himself." Even Emerson, who never quite trusted Webster, spoke of him as "the old Titanic Earth-Son." By sheer magnificence of personality he dominated every gathering which he attended; and the adjective "godlike" sometimes used with regard to him did not seem extravagant or ridiculous. "In all the attributes of a mighty and splendid manhood," said Senator Hoar, "he never had a superior on earth."
WEBSTER'S FINANCES
In his journal for February 7, 1843, Emerson mentions what were said by Webster's critics to be his three rules of living : "(1) Never to pay any debt that can by any possibility be avoided; (2) Never to do anything to-day that can be put off till to-morrow; (3) Never to do anything himself which he can get anybody else to do for him." The second and third of these involve charges which are not difficult to refute. The first, however, cannot be ignored.
Webster was generous and open-handed with money-too much so, undoubtedly, for his own good. He was careless in his expenditures, he was seldom out of debt, and he died virtually insolvent. Although he received at some periods a large revenue from his profession, he saved nothing, and he could rarely produce any considerable sum without appealing to his friends. He had about him something of the glamor of Charles James Fox or Charles Stuart. Blinded by his splendor, men forgave him his indiscretions. No one, how- ever, has ever been able to prove him guilty of corrupt prac- tices; his willingness to use the money of others was the fault of a man who was himself ready to bestow his last dollar on a needy friend.
Several transactions have subjected Webster to criticism. In 1834, in the midst of the controversy over the United States Bank, he wrote Nicholas Biddle, president of that institution, telling him of a refusal to take a case against the bank and adding, "I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual." In 1846, Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania, angered at a speech made by Webster in defense of the Ash-
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WEBSTER'S FINANCES
burton Treaty, accused him of having made unlawful use of the secret service fund at his disposal when he was Secretary of State; but an investigation showed that, while Webster had unquestionably been negligent in balancing his accounts, the money disbursed was covered by vouchers and there was no proof whatever of defalcation. Even as late as 1851, Charles Allen, a Free Soil Congressman, asserted that Webster, through collusion with a group of Eastern bankers, had lost the government $30,000 through some financial ar- rangements in connection with the last installment of the indemnity due to Mexico under the Treaty of 1848. Once more he was completely vindicated; but there are still those who have not forgotten the imputation of corruption.
Webster had no scruples about accepting large sums of money from his supporters, notably in 1848, when a group of business men in Boston subscribed $37,000 to provide him with an annuity as partial compensation for the professional income which he renounced when he reëntered the Senate. Impartial investigators will not find it difficult to forgive · Webster for receiving this gift, which was assembled without his knowledge and which certainly did not in the slightest degree affect his votes on public questions.
A well-authenticated story establishes that William W. Corcoran, of Washington, after reading the newspaper ac- count of the "Seventh of March Speech," was so delighted that he sent to Webster some of the latter's notes aggregating $6,000, together with his personal check for $1,000; and Webster's letter of gratitude for the donation was, according to Lodge, in existence in 1900. Here again no bargain was struck, and there would seem to be no imperative reason why Webster should have declined the badly needed accession to his bank account. After his death, one hundred citizens of Boston gave $1,000 each towards a trust fund for his widow. In the course of his career, Webster sacrificed a large profes- sional income-in 1848 at least $20,000 annually-in order to serve the state, and he doubtless satisfied his conscience with this fact. We must deplore his lack of thrift,-what Emerson called his "expensiveness,"-but he must be ac- quitted of the charge of dishonesty.
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DANIEL WEBSTER, STATESMAN
WEBSTER'S ALLEGED INTEMPERANCE
No man prominent in American public life can escape calumny, and Webster undoubtedly laid himself open to at- tack. The stories of his drunkenness were backstairs gossip during his lifetime and have been repeated more openly by some of his biographers. Like most gentlemen of those days, he had an excellent cellar and served wine, generally Madeira, at his table. He ordinarily drank in moderation, though there were occasions when, as Curtis admits, he was visibly affected by overindulgence. It is absurd to state that he was frequently intoxicated or that he was a sot. No drunkard could possibly have done the work which he managed to accomplish. Gamaliel Bradford writes in a commonsense point of view: "To me Webster's love of the sunrise and habit of five o'clock in the morning work are quite inconsist- ent with serious dissipation." The legends about Webster were so grossly exaggerated that, if he were seen taking a glass of brandy, the report soon spread that he was drunk.
Even statesmen of the ascetic type have not escaped charges of licentiousness, and it is no wonder that similar accusations were brought against Webster. Vague tales passed from ear to ear without the vestige of any proof to support them. Biographers who have examined the evidence are bound to conclude that Webster was untainted by this vice. His affec- tion for his two successive wives was so apparent to his friends as to make any charge of immorality seem grossly improbable. He was adored by his household, devoted to his children, and in his home was, according to Ticknor, "as gay and playful as a kitten." Unhappily he outlived all his children except Fletcher, who as a Federal colonel was killed at the second battle of Bull Run in 1862.
Few public men have had more loyal friends than Webster. Edward Everett, who was for a short time his pupil at a private school in Boston in early days, admired him and fol- lowed him, edited his speeches, and after his death defended his memory against aspersion. Caleb Cushing and Rufus Choate, the two brilliant attorneys from Essex County, ap- peared in court under his patronage and welcomed his advice; later they lent him considerable sums of money-often know-
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THE LAST DAYS
ing that they would never be repaid-and sacrificed their own interests for his. Among the merchants and bankers of Boston he was almost idolized, and he was regarded with a similar affection by the county folk around Marshfield. Political enemies Webster indisputably had, especially after the Seventh of March Speech alienated from him the aboli- tionists; but few could come under the spell of his personal charm without loving him.
THE LAST DAYS (1851-1852)
After the Ashburton Treaty, Webster lost ground physi- cally. The hay fever which was chronic with him every spring left him exhausted, and he was no longer so quick in re- cuperating. The loss of his two children, Edward and Julia, was a devastating blow. Furthermore a disorder of the liver compelled him to resort to oxide of arsenic and other stimu- lants prescribed by his physicians. His strong constitution wore down but slowly; when he was nearly seventy years old he continued to meet public engagements and carry on his law practice. He made a notable address on July 4, 1851, at the laying of the cornerstone of the addition to the Capitol in Washington; and in February, 1852, he delivered before the New York Historical Society one of his finest addresses, "The Dignity of Historical Compositions." He followed this by an argument at Trenton, New Jersey, against Rufus Choate, in the Goodyear Rubber Case. On his return to Marshfield in early May, however, he was thrown from his carriage and severely bruised and shocked. Although he was only dimly aware of it, this was the prelude to the final chapter in his career.
He did drag himself somewhat painfully to Faneuil Hall, May 22, 1852, to make his last appearance in the auditorium where he had so often been welcomed by his fellow citizens in Massachusetts. The results of the Whig Convention in Balti- more a few weeks later left him depressed. He was in Wash- ington when the nomination of General Scott was announced, and a vast crowd, headed by a band, marched to his home to serenade him. In what came to be known as his "midnight speech" he said, "You may be assured there is not one among
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you who will sleep better to-night than I shall." But this was the forced bravery of a disappointed and actually dying man.
July 9, Daniel Webster was accorded a public reception in Boston, as a spontaneous tribute from the people whom he had so long represented. Massachusetts has never sponsored a spectacle more imposing-not even the greeting to Wash- ington in 1789, or that to Lafayette in 1824. A military parade passed along a route of which the streets were adorned with banners and packed with cheering throngs. He ad- dressed a vast audience in a temporary amphitheatre on Boston Common-the only place which could hold the thou- sands who wished to hear and see him. It was an exhausting ordeal, but he was still able to proceed to "The Elms" at Franklin for a farewell visit to his boyhood home, and then to Washington.
THE LAST HOURS (1852)
It was not until September 8 that, after disposing of some diplomatic business, he returned to Marshfield. From the moment of his arrival he grew steadily worse, but he faced the end without faltering. Almost his last words were, "I still live." He died shortly after midnight, on the morning of October 24, 1852. Emerson, writing in his journal at Plymouth, noted, "The sea, the rocks, the woods, gave no sign that America and the world had lost the completest man."
Upon the nation, however, the effect of the news of Webster's passing was profound. John Fiske, thinking back, said, "A godlike presence had gone from us. Life seemed smaller, lonelier, and meaner." William A. Stearns in recol- lection said, "The impression created in my youthful mind was that there was now no help for the land but God." At the funeral thousands of people made their way to Marshfield, where he lay in state for hours under the open sky, death making him seem, in his familiar dress, even more majestic than in life. A neighbor, passing the coffin, was heard to mutter, "Daniel Webster, the world without you will seem lonesome." After a short and simple service at the house, the body was borne on the shoulders of his neighbors to the secluded family graveyard not far from the sea. The four stages of his life were ended :
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RETROSPECT
"A roof beneath the mountain pines ; The cloisters of a hill-girt plain; The front of life's embattled lines ; A mound beside the heaving main."
Resolutions and memorials were passed by dozens of organizations with which he had been connected. Dis- tinguished men, including President Fillmore and Edward Everett, joined in lamenting his death. In the following August, at Dartmouth College, Rufus Choate spoke what is undoubtedly the finest commemorative oration ever delivered in this country, a glowing heartfelt tribute to his departed friend. No New England leader-not Samuel Adams or John Adams or Edward Everett-has left a more enduring memory. For some years after his death his friends gathered in Boston on his birthday and observed the occasion with appropriate ceremonies.
At the centennial of his birth, in 1882, there was a succes- sion of memorial meetings, concluding with the Webster Historical Society celebration at Marshfield, on October 12, attended by President Chester A. Arthur. Dartmouth in 1901 observed the centenary of his graduation with many com- memorative speeches and the laying of the cornerstone of Daniel Webster Hall.
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