Instructor in Rhetoric and English Literature in the Newton, Mass.,
High School
"The front of Jove himself;
An eye like Mars to threaten and command;
A combination and a form indeed,
Where every god did seem to set his seal,
To give the world assurance of a man"
Boston, U.S.A.
D.C. Heath & Co., Publishers
1903
TO
THE HON. GEORGE F. HOAR, LL.D.
A WORTHY SUCCESSOR OF
DANIEL WEBSTER
IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES
Blest Statesman He, whose Mind's unselfish will
Leaves him at ease among grand thoughts: whose eye
Sees that, apart from magnanimity,
Wisdom exists not; nor the humbler skill
Of Prudence, disentangling good and ill
With patient care. What tho' assaults run high,
They daunt not him who holds his ministry,
Resolute, at all hazards, to fulfil
Its duties; prompt to move, but firm to wait;
Knowing, things rashly sought are rarely found;
That, for the functions of an ancient State--
Strong by her charters, free because imbound,
Servant of Providence, not slave of Fate--
Perilous is sweeping change, all chance unsound.
Preface.
Burke and Webster are models in the forensic literature of our own
language as truly as are Demosthenes and Cicero in the language of the
ancient classics. Each has distinct and inimitable characteristics
which give force and beauty to his work. The study of each should be
ordered in such a way as to put one in touch with those qualities of
mind and heart, of intellectual and moral manhood, by which each became
a leader in political philosophy and a model in literary style. One who
studies such authors in order to formulate a historical or a personal
estimate merely, or to compare each as to certain externals of
rhetorical form, has lost the true perspective of literary judgment.
Reading in the school and in the home is far too often pursued with a
purpose to controvert and prove rather than to weigh and consider.
Reading which does not result in enlarging, stimulating, and refining
one's nature is but a busy idleness. The schools must see to it that
the desultory and dissipating methods of reading, so prevalent in the
home, are not encouraged. Pupils must be stimulated first of all to
enjoy what is beautiful in nature and in art: for here is
"A world of ready wealth,
Their minds and hearts to bless--
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness."
The wisdom of the classroom is too often "art tongue-tied by
authority," and hence it is not wisdom at all, but a sham and a
pretence. Not until pupils rise to the spontaneity which betokens a
genuine love for the work in hand do they secure the richest results.
The publication of the masterpieces of the epic, the lyric, and the
drama; of the novel, the essay, and the oration, in a convenient form
and at such a price as to bring them within the reach of our schools,
makes it inexcusable if pupils are allowed to be ignorant of the great
literary, ethical, and artistic impulses which have touched and
quickened the life of the past.
Burke's _American Orations_ present him at his best as a statesman, an
orator, and a stylist. When the edition of those speeches was prepared,
a selection from Webster's great speeches was contemplated as a
companion volume. The present edition represents Webster in the various
and distinct fields in which his genius manifested itself so powerfully
and so nobly. He is here seen before a jury, before the Supreme Court
of the United States, on a great historical occasion, in the Senate of
the United States, in a great national canvass, and as a eulogist.
Had it not been for making the volume too large for school use I should
have included the famous speech delivered in the Senate on the 7th of
March, 1850. This speech has been considered by many as the _vulnus
immedicabile_ of Mr. Webster's political life; it is certain that for
it he was most rankly abused. "Massachusetts," as Hon. John D. Long has
said, "smote and broke the heart of Webster, her idol, and then broke
her own above his grave, and to-day writes his name highest upon her
roll of statesmen."
I find in this speech nothing but what is consistent with Mr. Webster's
noble adherence to the Constitution and the Union; nothing but what is
consistent with the solemn duty of a great man in a great national
crisis.
In his address at Buffalo on the 22d of May, 1851, he expressed himself
very freely in regard to this speech, saying: "I felt that I had a duty
to perform to my country, to my own reputation; for I flattered myself
that a service of forty years had given me some character, on which I
had a right to repose for my justification in the performance of a duty
attended with some degree of local unpopularity. I thought it was my
duty to pursue this course, and I did not care what was to be the
consequence. And, Gentlemen, allow me to say here to-day, that if the
fate of John Rogers had stared me in the face, if I had seen the stake,
if I had heard the fagots already crackling, by the blessing of
Almighty God I would have gone on and discharged the duty which I
thought my country called upon me to perform."
Does this seem the language of one who had abandoned his post and was
merely "bidding for the Presidency"?
The address of Hon. Rufus Choate, before the students of Dartmouth
College, commemorative of Daniel Webster, has a remark on this subject
so just that I cannot refrain from quoting it. He says: "Until the
accuser who charges Mr. Webster with having 'sinned against his
conscience' will assert that the conscience of a public man may not,
must not, be instructed by profound knowledge of the vast
subject-matter with which public life is conversant, and will assert
that he is certain that the consummate science of our great statesman
was _felt by himself to prescribe to his morality_ another conduct than
that which he adopted, and that he thus consciously outraged that
'sense of duty which pursues us ever,'--is he not inexcusable, whoever
he is, that so judges another?"
At the meeting held in Faneuil Hall, Oct. 27, 1852, commemorative of
Mr. Webster's life and work, Mr. Edward Everett said: "Whoever, in
after time, shall write the history of the United States for the last
forty years will write the life of Daniel Webster; and whoever writes
the life of Daniel Webster as it ought to be written will write the
history of the Union from the time he took a leading part in its
concerns." Mr. Choate, at a meeting of the Supreme Court of
Massachusetts, Oct. 25, 1852, said: "Happier than the younger Pliny,
happier than Cicero, he has found his historian, unsolicited, in his
lifetime, and his countrymen have him all by heart."
If this volume shall aid in bringing the young of this generation "to
have him all by heart," to ascend his imaginative heights and sit under
the shadow of his profound reflections on that which is fundamental in
civil and religious liberty, its purpose will be accomplished.
With few exceptions these selections are given entire. Whenever they
have been abridged, the continuity of the discourse has not been
impaired.
In the matter of annotation the purpose has been to furnish sufficient
aid to the general reader, and at the same time to indicate to the
special student lines along which he may study the speeches.
In Edward Everett's Memoir, found in the first volume of Mr. Webster's
works; in the life of Mr. Webster by George Tichnor Curtis, and in
Henry Cabot Lodge's _Daniel Webster_, in the American Statesman Series,
the student has exhaustive, scholarly, and judicious estimates of Mr.
Webster's work.
I am indebted to the Hon. George F. Hoar and the Hon. Edward J. Phelps
for assistance in the task of selecting representative speeches; and to
the former for permission to associate his name with this edition of
Mr. Webster's work.