On January 8th, 1782, was born at Franklin, New Hampshire, a son to a
comparatively poor farmer. No royal blood flowed through the veins of
this child whereby to bring him honor, yet one day he was to rise to the
foremost rank among the rulers of his country. At that early period the
town of Salisbury, now Franklin, was the extreme northern settlement in
New Hampshire, and the schools were of necessity in a primitive state.
Daniel Webster labored on his father's farm during the summer, and a few
months of each winter attended the district school some two miles from
his home. Considering the cold, and the heavy snows which are
characteristic of his native State, one can scarcely realize the amount
of energy he must have utilized to enable him to enter Exeter Academy at
the early age of fourteen, and one year later, Dartmouth College. He is
represented as promising nothing of his future greatness at this time,
but it is stated that he pursued every study with EXTRAORDINARY
TENACITY.
He read widely, especially in history and general English literature,
and thereby laid a good foundation for the splendid education which his
personal energy at last brought him. As a matter of course, such a line
of action must bring out what qualities might be in any man. The college
societies soon sought him as a member.
While at Exeter he could hardly muster courage to speak before his
class, but before he had finished his college course he had delivered
addresses before the societies, which found their way into print. His
diligence soon placed him at the head of his class, a position he
maintained until the close of his college studies, graduating in 1801
with high honors.
Choosing law as his profession, he entered the law office of a friend
and neighbor, Thomas Thompson, who afterwards became a congressman and
eventually a senator. Mr. Webster remained here for some time when he
left the office to become a teacher in Maine at a salary of $350 per
year, which he enlarged somewhat by copying deeds. He afterwards
returned to the office of Mr. Thompson where he remained until 1804,
when he went to Boston and entered the office of Christopher Gove, who
also distinguished himself afterwards as governor of Massachusetts.
He had previously helped his brother Ezekiel to prepare for college, and
Daniel now in turn was helped to continue his law studies as Ezekiel was
teaching. His opportunity to enter the office of Mr. Gove proved most
fortunate, as he was thus enabled to study men, books and daily hear
intelligent discussions on the topics of national interest.
In 1805 he was admitted to the bar, and established himself at Boscawen.
He had been offered the clerkship of the Hillsboro County Court at a
salary of $1,500 a year, which was then a large income, and he was urged
to accept it by his father and other friends, but was dissuaded from so
doing by Mr. Gove, who foresaw great honor in store for him at the bar.
He practiced at Boscawen one year, when he was admitted to practice in
the Superior Court of New Hampshire, and he established himself at
Portsmouth, at that time the capital of the State. Here he rose to
distinction among the most eminent counsellors. During his nine years
residence in Portsmouth he gave his especial attention to constitutional
law, becoming one of the soundest practitioners in the State.
He had inherited from his father the principles of the Federalist party,
and, therefore, advocated them in speeches on public occasions, but did
not for some years enter into politics. Mr. Webster came forward in a
time when party spirit ran high, and the declaration of war in 1812,
long deprecated by his party, created a demand for the best talent the
country afforded. Mr. Webster now held a commanding reputation, and in
1812 he was sent to Congress. This was a most favorable time for Webster
to enter Congress, as measures of the greatest importance were now to be
discussed.
Henry Clay was speaker of the house, and placed this new member on a
most important committee. June 10, 1813, he delivered his maiden speech
on the repeal of the Berlin and Milan decrees. These decrees were a
scheme of Napoleon's, avowedly directed against the commercial
interests of Great Britain.
They closed all ports of France, and her allied countries against all
vessels coming from England or any English colony. All commerce and
correspondence was prohibited. All English merchandise was seized, and
English subjects found in any country governed by France were held
prisoners of war.
Great Britain retaliated by prohibiting neutral vessels from entering
the ports of France under pain of confiscation; and a later order placed
France and her allies, together with all countries with whom England was
at war, under the same restriction.
Napoleon then issued his decree from Milan and the Tuileries declaring
that any vessel that had ever been searched by English authority, or had
ever paid duty to England, should be treated as a lawful prize of war.
Mr. Webster's first speech, as before stated, was upon a resolution on
the repeal of these decrees, and so ably did he define our duty as a
country, in the matter, and so clearly did he show wherein both England
and France had transgressed; that, being a new member, unknown outside
of his own section of the Union, his lucid and eloquent appeal took the
house and nation by surprise.
His subsequent speeches on the increase of the navy and the repeal of
the embargo act won for him a first place among the great debaters of
his day. He cultivated a friendly relation with political opponents as
well as partisan friends, which soon gained for him the respect of all
and he became the acknowledged leader of the Federal party. He was
re-elected to Congress in 1814 by a large majority, and in the debates
upon the United States bank which followed, he displayed a most
remarkable mastery of the financial questions of his time. Afterward a
bill which was introduced by him passed, requiring all payments to the
treasury to be made in specie or its equivalent, restored the
depreciated currency of the country.
His home and library was burned and after some hesitation as to whether
to locate in Boston or Albany, he decided on the former whither he
moved, and where he lived the remainder of his life. This change of
location gave greater scope for the extension of his legal business, and
his resignation from Congress increased still further his time and
opportunities. During the next seven years he devoted his exclusive
attention to his profession, taking a position as counsellor, above
which no one has ever risen in this country, and the best class of
business passed into his hands.
In 1816 the legislature of New Hampshire reorganized the corporation of
Dartmouth College, changing its name to Dartmouth University, and
selecting new trustees. The newly-created body took possession of the
institution, and the old board brought action against the new
management. The case involved the powers of the legislature over the old
corporation without their consent. It was decided twice in the
affirmative by the courts of the State, when it was appealed to
Washington, the highest court.
Mr. Webster opened the case, delivering a most eloquent and exhaustive
argument for the college. His argument was that it was a private
institution supported through charity, over which the State had no
control, and that the legislature could not annul except for acts in
violation of its charter, which had not been shown. Chief Justice
Marshal decided that the act of the legisature was unconstitutional and
reversed the previous decisions. This established Mr. Webster's
reputation in the Supreme Court, and he was retained in every
considerable case thereafter, being considered one of the greatest
expounders of constitutional law in the Union.
He was already acknowledged to be among the greatest criminal lawyers,
and at the anniversary of the landing of the pilgrim fathers he
delivered the first of a series of orations which, aside from his legal
and legislative achievements must have made him renowned. He was elected
in 1822 to congress, being chosen from Boston, and during 1823 made his
world-famous speech on the Greek revolution; a most powerful
remonstrance against what has passed into history as "The holy
alliance," and he also opposed an extravagant increase of the tariff. He
also reported and carried through the house a complete revision of the
criminal law of the United States, being chairman of the judiciary
committee. In 1827 he was selected by the legislature of Massachusetts
to fill a vacancy in the United States senate. In that body he won a
foremost position.
Probably the most eloquent exhibition of oratory, based on logic and
true statesmanship, ever exhibited in the Senate of the United States
was the contest between Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Hayne,
the silver-tongued orator of South Carolina; the debate transpiring in
1830. The subject of discussion before the senate by these two
intellectual gladiators grew out of a resolution brought forward by
Senator Foot, of Connecticut, just at the close of the previous year
with a view of some arrangement concerning the sales of the public
lands. But this immediate question was soon lost sight of in the
discussion of a great vital principle of constitutional law, namely:
The relative powers of the States and the national government.
Upon this Mr. Benton and Mr. Hayne addressed the Senate, condemning the
policy of the Eastern States as illiberal toward the West. Mr. Webster
replied in vindication of New England, and of the policy of the
Government. It was then that Mr. Hayne made his attack--sudden,
unexpected, and certainly unexampled--upon Mr. Webster personally, upon
Massachusetts and other Northern States politically, and upon the
constitution itself. In respect to the latter, Mr. Hayne taking the
position that it is constitutional to interrupt the administration of
the Constitution itself, in the hands of those who are chosen and sworn
to administer it; by the direct interference in form of law, of the
States, in virtue of their sovereign capacity.
All of these points were handled by Mr. Hayne with that rhetorical
brilliancy, and the power which characterized him as the oratorical
champion of the South on the floor of the Senate, and it is not saying
too much that the speech produced a profound impression. Mr. Hayne's
great effort appeared to be the result of premeditation, concert, and
arrangement.
He selected his own time, and that, too, peculiarly inconvenient to Mr.
Webster, for at that moment the Supreme Court was proceeding in the
hearing of a case of great importance in which he was a leading counsel.
For this reason he requested, through a friend, the postponement of the
debate. Mr. Hayne objected, however, and the request was refused. The
time, the matter, and the manner, indicated that the attack was made
with the design to crush so formidable a political opponent as Mr.
Webster had become. To this end, personal history, the annals of New
England, and the federal party were ransacked for materials.
It was attempted with the usual partisan unfairness of political
harangues to make him responsible not only for what was his own, but for
the conduct and opinions of others. All the errors and delinquencies,
real or supposed, of Massachusetts and the Eastern States, and of the
Federal party during the war of 1812, and indeed prior and subsequent to
that period were accumulated and heaped upon him.
Thus it was that Mr. Hayne heralded his speech with a bold declaration
of war, with taunts and threats, vaunting anticipated triumph--saying
'that he would carry the war into Africa until he had obtained indemnity
for the past and security for the future.' It was supposed that as a
distinguished representative man, Mr. Webster would be driven to defend
what was indefensible, to uphold what could not be sustained and, as a
Federalist, to oppose the popular resolutions of '98.
The severe nature of Mr. Hayne's charges, the ability with which he
brought them to bear upon his opponents, his great reputation as a
brilliant and powerful declaimer, filled the minds of his friends with
anticipations of complete triumph. For two days Mr. Hayne had control of
the floor. The vehemence of his language and the earnestness of his
manner, we might properly say the power of his oratory, 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 on his rapid words or canvass his sweeping and accumulated
statements. The dashing nature of the onset, the assurance, almost
insolence of his tone; the serious character of the accusations,
confounded almost every hearer.
The immediate impression of the speech was most surely disheartening to
the cause Mr. Webster upheld. Congratulations from almost every quarter
were showered upon Mr. Hayne. Mr. Benton said in full senate that as
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 or Burke nor Fox had surpassed it in their
palmiest days.
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 speech. He regarded the speech as an entirely unprovoked attack
on the North, and what was of far more importance, as an exposition of
politics in which 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 most
historians.
It was on Tuesday, January 26th, 1830--a day to be hereafter 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 more 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, even its galleries, floor, and 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 call them back. The floor of the Senate
was so densely crowded that persons once in could not get out.
Seldom, if ever, has a 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 oratory
had flourished for ages.
Mr. Webster perceived and felt equal to the destinies of the moment. The
very greatness of the hazard exhilarated him. His spirits arose 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 off-spring 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 arose on an ordinary occasion to address an
ordinary audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulousness in his
voice or manner; nothing hurried, nothing simulated. The calmness of
superior strength was visible everywhere; in countenance, voice and
bearing. A deep-seated 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 that a motion was made
and unanimously carried to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of
senatorial action and take up immediately the consideration of the
resolution.
Mr. Webster arose and addressed the Senate. His exordium is known by
heart everywhere. "Mr. President when the mariner has been tossed about
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 resolutions."
Calm, resolute, impressive was this opening speech. There wanted no more
to enchain the attention. There was a spontaneous though silent
expression of eager attention 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 toward 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 thought, 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 some who affected indifference at first to his glowing thoughts and
fervant periods, the difficult mask was soon laid aside and profound,
undisguised, devout attention followed.
In truth, all sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of themselves
were wholly carried away by the spell of such unexampled eloquence.
Those who had doubted Mr. Webster's power to cope with and overcome his
opponent were fully satisfied of their error before he had proceeded
far in this debate. Their fears soon took another direction. When they
heard his sentences of powerful thought towering in accumulated 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 intellectual 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 who was present, could ever
forget 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 remain 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 party strife 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 vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather
around 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 emotion as Mr. Webster
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
evidence of their emotion.
We presume that none but those present can understand the excitement of
the scene. No one who was present can, it seems, 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 would still 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 countenance 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 completely realized my conception of what
Demosthenes was when he delivered the oration for the Crown."
Could there be higher praise than this? Keen 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 shown from
beneath his somber overhanging brow like lights in the blackness of
night from a sepulcher. 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 understood at that day.
"It is," said Mr. 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 scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he
choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, 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 onto 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
severe 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,
"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 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 hearers in deep and thrilling cadence as 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 ante-rooms 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
lustre, 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 folly and delusion: 'Liberty first
and Union afterwards,' but everywhere spread all over it characters of
living light blazing on all of 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 on 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 silence; the
feeling was too overpowering to allow expression by voice or hand. But
the descending hammer of the chair awoke them with a start, and with one
universal, long drawn, deep breath, with which the over-charged heart
seeks relief, the crowded assembly broke up and departed.
In the evening President Jackson held a levee at the White House. It was
known in advance that Mr. Webster would attend it, and hardly had the
hospitable doors of the mansion been thrown open, when the crowd that
had filled the Senate-Chamber in the morning rushed in and occupied the
room, leaving a vast and increasing crowd at the entrance. On all
previous occasions the general himself had been the observed of all
observers. His receptions were always gladly attended by large numbers,
and to these he himself was always the chief object of attraction on
account of his great military and personal reputation, official
position, gallant bearing, and courteous manners. But on this occasion
the room in which he received his company was deserted as soon as
courtesy to the president permitted.
Mr. Webster was in the East room and thither the whole mass hurried. He
stood almost in the center of the room pressed upon by surging crowds
eager to pay him deference. Hayne, too, was there, and with others went
up and complimented Mr. Webster on his brilliant effort. In a subsequent
meeting between the two rival debators Webster challenged Hayne to drink
a glass of wine with him, saying as he did so, "General Hayne I drink to
your health, and I hope that you may live a thousand years." "I shall
not live more than one hundred if you make another such a speech," Hayne
replied.
To this day Webster's speech is regarded as the master-piece of modern
eloquence--unsurpassed by even the mightiest efforts of either Pitt, Fox
or Burke--a matchless intellectual achievement and complete forensic
triumph. It was to this great, triumphant effort that Mr. Webster's
subsequent fame as a statesman was due.
Upon the election of General Harrison to the presidency Mr. Webster was
offered his choice of the places in the cabinet, a recognition of
ability probably never accorded to any other man before or since. He
finally accepted the office of Secretary of State. Our relation with
England demanded prompt attention. The differences existing between the
two nations relative to the Northern boundary could not be disregarded,
and Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton brought about a treaty which was
equally honorable and advantageous to the countries. He was also able
later to contribute much toward the settlement of the Oregon boundary
question through private channels of influence, though holding no
official position at the time.
In 1847 he started on a tour of the Southern States, being well received
throughout; especially in Charleston, Columbia, Augusta and Savannah was
as well received, but his health failing him in the latter city, he was
obliged to abandon his project of making a tour of the whole South. He
became Secretary of State under Mr. Fillmore. This position he held at
his death which occurred at Marshfield, on the 24th day of October,
1852. Funeral orations were delivered throughout the country in great
numbers.
He was a man of commanding figure, large but well proportioned. His head
was of unusual size, his eyes deep-seated and lustrious, and had a voice
powerful yet pleasing; his action, while not remarkably graceful, was
easy and impressive. His social tastes were very strong and he possessed
marked conversational power. He lived in an age of great legislators and
it is needless to add that he was excelled in statesmanship by none.
Professor Ticknor, speaking in one of his letters of the intense
excitement with which he listened to Webster's Plymouth address, says:
"Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the gush of
blood, for after all you must know I am aware it is no connected and
compact whole, but a collection of broken fragments, of burning
eloquence to which his manner gave ten fold force. When I came out I was
almost afraid to come near him. It seemed to me that he was like the
mount that might not be touched, and that burned with fire."