Until 1836 she was a province of Mexico, but in 1835 she resorted to
arms to free herself. On March 6, 1836, a Texan fort, called the Alamo,
was surrounded by eight thousand Mexicans, led by Santa Anna. The
garrison was massacred. The next month the battle of San Jacinto was
fought, and Texas became independent. When she asked admission to the
Union, the Democrats favored and the Whigs opposed, because she would
naturally become slave territory. Already, August 30, 1843, the "Liberty
Party" had assembled at Baltimore and nominated a candidate for the
presidency. The North was becoming agitated on the subject of slavery,
but the Whigs avoided both the subjects of slavery and Texas in their
platform, and nominated as their presidential candidate not Daniel
Webster but Henry Clay.
Again Webster worked earnestly for his party and its nominee, but the
Whigs were defeated, as is usually the case when a party fears to touch
the great questions which public opinion demands. They learned a lesson
when it was too late, and other political parties should profit by their
example.
James K. Polk of Tennessee was elected, Texas was admitted to the Union,
and the Mexican War resulted. War was declared by Congress May 11, 1846,
vigorously prosecuted, and Mexico was defeated. By the terms of the
treaty, concluded February 2, 1848, New Mexico and Upper California were
given to the United States. Webster, who had been returned to the
Senate by Massachusetts, opposed the war as he had the annexation of
Texas. At this time a double sorrow came to him. His second son, Major
Edward Webster, a young man of fine abilities, courage, and high sense
of honor, died near the city of Mexico, from disease induced by
exposure. His body arrived in Boston May 4, and, only three days before,
Webster's lovely daughter, Julia, who had married Samuel Appleton of
Boston, was carried to her grave by consumption. Her death, at thirty,
was beautiful in its resignation and faith, even though she left five
little children to the care of others. Her last words were, "Let me go,
for the day breaketh," which words were placed upon her tombstone.
Mr. Webster was indeed crushed by this new sorrow. He wrote to his
friend Mrs. Ticknor, "I cannot speak of the lost ones; but I submit to
the will of God. I feel that I am nothing, less even than the merest
dust of the balance; and that the Creator of a million worlds, and the
judge of all flesh, must be allowed to dispose of me and mine as to his
infinite wisdom shall seem best."
In 1848, when Mr. Webster was sixty-six, the presidency once more eluded
his grasp by the nomination of another "available" man, General Zachary
Taylor, one of the heroes of the Mexican War. Webster had spoken
earnestly for Harrison and Clay; now he was unwilling longer to work for
the party which had ignored him and nominated a man whom, though an
able soldier, he thought unfitted for the place as a statesman. If it
was a mistake to show that he was wounded in spirit, as it undoubtedly
was for so great a man, it was nevertheless human.
The thing which Mr. Webster had feared these many years was now coming
to pass. A violent agitation of the slavery question in the Territories
was upon the nation. For thirty years slavery had been odious to the
North, and carefully nurtured by the South. In 1820, when Missouri was
admitted as a State, the North insisted that a clause prohibiting
slavery should be inserted as a condition of her admission to the Union.
Henry Clay devised the compromise by which slavery was prohibited in all
the new territory lying north of latitude 36 deg. 30', which was the
southern boundary of Missouri. This line was called Mason and Dixon's
line, from the names of the two surveyors who ran the boundary line
between Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Year by year the hatred of slavery had intensified at the North.
February 1, 1847, David Wilmot of Pennsylvania introduced in Congress
his famous proviso, by which slavery was to be excluded from all
territory thereafter acquired or annexed by the United States. And now,
in 1849, the conflict on the slavery question was more virulent than
ever. California, having framed a constitution prohibiting slavery,
applied for admission to the Union. New Mexico asked for a territorial
government and for the exclusion of slavery.
The South claimed that the Missouri Compromise, extending to the Pacific
coast, guaranteed the right to introduce slavery into California and New
Mexico, and threatened secession from the Union. Again Henry Clay
settled the matter,--for a time only, as it proved,--by his famous
Compromise of 1850, by which California was admitted as a free State,
the Territories taken from Mexico left to decide the slavery question as
they chose, the slave-trade abolished in the District of Columbia, more
effectual enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law demanded, with some
other minor provisions.
The Fugitive Slave Law, which provided for the return of the fugitives
without trial by jury, and expected Christian people to aid the
slave-dealers in capturing their slaves, was especially obnoxious to the
North. Some of the States had passed "Personal Liberty Bills," punishing
as kidnappers persons who sought to take away alleged slaves.
Mr. Webster saw with dismay all this bitterness, and knew that the Union
which he loved was in danger. He hoped to avert civil war, perhaps to
still the tumult forever, and so gave his great heart and brain to the
Clay compromise. On March 7, 1850, he delivered in Congress his famous
speech on the Compromise bill. The Senate chamber was crowded with an
intensely excited audience. Mr. Webster discussed the whole history of
slavery, opposed the Wilmot Proviso, because he thought every part of
the country settled as to slavery, either by law or nature,--he could
not look into the future and see Kansas,--and then condemned the course
of the North in its resistance to the Fugitive Slave Law, which he held
to be constitutional. The words in reference to restoring fugitive
slaves created a storm of indignation at the North, which had looked
upon Webster as a great anti-slavery leader, and who had said in the
oration at Plymouth, "I hear the sound of the hammer, I see the smoke of
the furnaces where manacles and fetters are still forged for human
limbs. I see the visages of those who, by stealth and at midnight, labor
in this work of hell, foul and dark, as may become the artificers of
such instruments of misery and torture. Let that spot be purified, or
let it cease to be of New England. Let it be purified, or let it be set
aside from the Christian world; let it be put out of the circle of human
sympathies and human regards, and let civilized man henceforth have no
communion with it." In his speech to Hayne he had said, "I regard
domestic slavery as one of the greatest evils, both moral and
political."
Probably Mr. Webster had not changed his mind at all in regard to the
enormity of slavery, but he hoped to save the Union from war. He indeed
helped to postpone the conflict, but if the presidency had before this
been a possibility to him, it became now an impossibility forever, and
his own words had done it.
President Taylor died July 9, 1850, when the discussion of the
Compromise matter was at its height, and Millard Fillmore became
President. He at once made Webster Secretary of State. Mr. Webster bore
bravely the reproaches of the North. He said, "I cared for nothing, I
was afraid of nothing, but I meant to do my duty. Duty performed makes a
man happy; duty neglected makes a man unhappy.... 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."
At the next national Whig convention, General Winfield Scott was
nominated to the presidency. Multitudes throughout the country were
disappointed that Webster was not chosen. Boston gave him a magnificent
reception. Marshfield welcomed him with a gathering of thousands of
people nine miles from his home, who escorted him thither, scattering
garlands along the way. "I remember how," says Charles Lanman, "after
the crowd had disappeared, he entered his house fatigued beyond measure,
and covered with dust, and threw himself into a chair. For a moment his
head fell upon his breast, as if completely overcome, and he then looked
up like one seeking something he could not find. It was the portrait of
his darling but departed daughter, Julia, and it happened to be in full
view. He gazed upon it for some time in a kind of trance, and then wept
like one whose heart was broken, and these words escaped his lips, 'Oh,
I am so thankful to be here. If I could only have my will, never, never
would I again leave this home!'"
Here he was happy. Here he had gathered a large library, many of his
books being on science, of which he was very fond. Of geology and
physical geography he had made a careful study. Humboldt's "Cosmos" was
an especial favorite.
In the spring of 1852, Mr. Webster fell from his carriage, and from this
fall he never entirely recovered. In the fall he made his will, and
wrote these words for his monument, "Lord, I believe; help thou mine
unbelief. Philosophical argument, especially that drawn from the
vastness of the universe in comparison with the apparent insignificance
of this globe, has sometimes shaken my reason for the faith that is in
me; but my heart has assured and reassured me that the Gospel of Jesus
Christ must be a Divine Reality.
"The Sermon on the Mount cannot be a merely human production. This
belief enters into the very depth of my conscience. The whole history of
man proves it."
Mr. Webster had repeatedly given his testimony in favor of the Christian
religion. "Religion," he said, "is a necessary and indispensable element
in any great human character. There is no living without it. Religion is
the tie that connects man with his Creator, and holds him to his throne.
If that tie be all sundered, all broken, he floats away, a worthless
atom in the universe; its proper attractions all gone, its destiny
thwarted, and its whole future nothing but darkness, desolation, and
death."
Once, at a dinner party of gentlemen, he was asked by one present, "What
is the most important thought that ever occupied your mind?"
The reply came slowly and solemnly, "My individual responsibility to
God!"
When the last of October came, Mr. Webster was nearing the end of life.
About a week before he died he asked that a herd of his best oxen might
be driven in front of his windows, that he might see their honest faces
and gentle eyes. A man who thus loves animals must have a tender heart.
A few hours before Mr. Webster died, he said slowly, "My general wish on
earth has been to do my Maker's will. I thank him now for all the
mercies that surround me.... No man, who is not a brute, can say that he
is not afraid of death. No man can come back from _that_ bourne; no man
can comprehend the will or the works of God. That there _is_ a God all
must acknowledge. I see him in all these wondrous works--himself how
wondrous!
"The great mystery is Jesus Christ--the Gospel. What would the condition
of any of us be if we had not the hope of immortality?... Thank God, the
Gospel of Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to _light_,
_rescued_ it--brought it to _light_." He then began to repeat the Lord's
prayer, saying earnestly, "Hold me up, I do not wish to pray with a
fainting voice."
He longed to be conscious when death came. At midnight he said, "I still
live," his last coherent words. A little after three he ceased to
breathe.
He was buried as he had requested to be, "without the least show or
ostentation," on October 29, 1852. The coffin was placed upon the lawn,
and more than ten thousand persons gazed upon the face of the great
statesman. One unknown man, in plain attire, said as he looked upon him,
all unconscious that anybody might hear his words, "Daniel Webster, the
world without you will seem lonesome." Six of his neighbors bore him to
his grave and laid him beside Grace and his children.
When the Civil War came, which Mr. Webster had done all in his power to
avert, it took the last child out of his family: Fletcher, a colonel of
the Twelfth Massachusetts volunteers, fell in the battle of August 29,
1862, near Bull Run.
[Illustration: Signature "Your friend & obe Serv H. Clay"]
HENRY CLAY.
Henry Clay, the "mill-boy of the Slashes," was born April 12, 1777, in
Hanover County, Virginia, in a neighborhood called the "Slashes," from
its low, marshy ground. The seventh in a family of eight children, says
Dr. Calvin Colton, in his "Life and Times of Henry Clay," he came into
the home of Rev. John Clay, a true-hearted Baptist minister, poor, but
greatly esteemed by all who knew him. Mr. Clay used often to preach
out-of-doors to his impecunious flock, who, beside loving him for his
spiritual nature, admired his fine voice and manly presence.
When Henry was four years old the father died, leaving the wife to
struggle for her daily bread, rich only in the affection which poverty
so often intensifies and makes heroic. She was a devoted mother, a
person of more than ordinary mind, and extremely patriotic, a quality
transmitted to her illustrious son.
Says Hon. Carl Schurz, in his valuable Life of Clay, "There is a
tradition in the family that, when the dead body [of the father] was
still lying in the house, Colonel Tarleton, commanding a cavalry
force under Lord Cornwallis, passed through Hanover County on a raid,
and left a handful of gold and silver on Mrs. Clay's table as a
compensation for some property taken or destroyed by his soldiers; but
that the spirited woman, as soon as Tarleton was gone, swept the money
into her apron and threw it into the fireplace. It would have been in no
sense improper, and more prudent, had she kept it, notwithstanding her
patriotic indignation."
Anxious that her children be educated, Mrs. Clay sent them to the log
school-house in the neighborhood, to learn reading, writing, and
arithmetic from Peter Deacon, an Englishman, who seems to have succeeded
well in teaching, when sober. The log house was a small structure, with
earth floor, no windows, and an entrance which served for continuous
ventilation, as there was no door to keep out cold or heat. Henry had
nothing of consequence to remember of this school save the marks of a
whipping received from Peter Deacon when he was angry.
As soon as school hours were over each day, he had to work to help
support the family. Now the bare-footed boy might be seen ploughing;
now, mounted on a pony guided by a rope bridle, with a bag of meal
thrown across the horse's back, he might be seen going from his home to
Mrs. Darricott's mill, on the Pamunky River. The people nicknamed him
"The mill-boy of the Slashes," and, years later, when the same
bare-footed, mother-loving boy was nominated for the presidency, the
term became one of endearment and pride to hundreds of thousands, who
knew by experience what a childhood of toil and hardship meant. He
became the idol of the poor not less than of the rich, because he could
sympathize in their privations, and sympathy is usually born of
suffering. Perchance we ought to welcome bitter experiences, for he
alone has power who has great sympathy.
After some years of widowhood, Mrs. Clay married Captain Henry Watkins
of Richmond, Virginia, and, though she bore him seven children, he did
not forget to be a father to the children of her former marriage. When
Henry was fourteen, Captain Watkins placed him in Richard Denny's store
in Richmond. For a year the boy sold groceries and dry-goods in the
retail store, reading in every moment of leisure. His step-father
thought rightly that a boy who was so eager to read should have better
advantages, and therefore applied to his friend, Colonel Tinsley, for a
position in the office of the Clerk of the High Court of Chancery, the
clerk being the brother of the colonel.
"There is no vacancy," said the clerk.
"Never mind," said the colonel, "you _must_ take him;" and so he did.
The glad mother cut and made for Henry an ill-fitting suit of gray
"figinny" (Virginia) cloth, cotton and silk mixed, and starched his
linen to a painful stiffness. When he appeared in the clerk's office he
was tall and awkward, and the occupants at the desks could scarcely
restrain their mirth at the appearance of the new-comer. Henry was put
to the task of copying. The clerks wisely remained quiet, and soon found
that the boy was proud, ambitious, quick, willing to work, and superior
to themselves in common-sense and the use of language.
Every night when they went in quest of amusement young Clay went home to
read. It could not have been mere chance which attracted to the
studious, bright boy the attention of George Wythe, the Chancellor of
the High Court of Chancery. He was a noted and noble man, one of the
signers of the Declaration of Independence, for ten years teacher of
jurisprudence at William and Mary's College, a man so liberal in his
views in the days of slavery that he emancipated all his slaves and made
provision for their maintenance; the same great man in whose office
Thomas Jefferson gained inspiration in his youth.
George Wythe selected Clay for his amanuensis in writing out the
decisions of the courts. He soon became greatly attached to the boy of
fifteen, directed his reading, first in grammatical studies, and then in
legal and historical lines. He read Homer, Plutarch's Lives, and similar
great works. The conversation of such a man as Mr. Wythe was to Clay
what that of Christopher Gore was to Daniel Webster, or that of Judge
Story to Charles Sumner. Generally men who have become great have allied
themselves to great men or great principles early in life. When Clay
had been four years with the chancellor he naturally decided to become a
lawyer. Poverty did not deter him; hard work did not deter him. Those
who fear to labor must not take a step on the road to fame.
Clay entered the office of Attorney-General Robert Brooke, a man
prominent and able. Here he studied hard for a year, and was admitted to
the bar, having gained much legal knowledge in the previous four years.
During this year he mingled with the best society of Richmond, his own
intellectual ability, courteous manners, and good cheer making him
welcome, not less than the well known friendship of Chancellor Wythe for
him. Clay organized a debating society, and the "mill-boy of the
Slashes" quite astonished, not only the members but the public as well,
by his unusual powers of oratory.
The esteem of Richmond society did not bring money quickly enough to the
enterprising young man. His parents had removed to Kentucky, and he
decided to go there also, "and grow up with the country." He was now
twenty-one, poor, not as thoroughly educated as he could have wished,
but determined to succeed, and when one has this determination the
battle is half won. That he regretted his lack of early opportunities, a
speech made on the floor of Congress years afterward plainly showed. In
reply to Hon. John Randolph he said, "The gentleman from Virginia was
pleased to say that in one point, at least, he coincided with me in an
humble estimate of my grammatical and philological acquisitions. I know
my deficiencies. I was born to no proud patrimonial estate. I inherited
only infancy, ignorance, and indigence. I feel my defects. But, so far
as my situation in early life is concerned, I may, without presumption,
say it was more my misfortune than my fault. But, however I regret my
want of ability to furnish the gentleman with a better specimen of
powers of verbal criticism, I will venture to say it is not greater than
the disappointment of this committee as to the strength of his
argument."
When Clay arrived in Lexington, Kentucky, he found not the polished
society of Richmond, but a genial, warm-hearted, high-spirited race of
men and women, who cordially welcomed the young lawyer with his
sympathetic manner and distinguished air, the result of an inborn sense
of leadership. Soon after he began to practise law, he joined a debating
society, and, with his usual good-sense, did not take an active part
until he became acquainted with the members.
One evening, after a subject had been long debated, and the vote was to
be taken, Clay, feeling that the matter was not exhausted, rose to
speak. At first he was embarrassed, and began, "Gentlemen of the jury!"
The audience laughed. Roused to self-control by this mistake, his words
came fast and eloquent, till the people held their breath in amazement.
From that day, Lexington knew that a young man of brilliancy and power
had come within her borders.
Nearly fifty years later, he said in the same city, when he retired from
public life, "In looking back upon my origin and progress through life,
I have great reason to be thankful. My father died in 1781, leaving me
an infant of too tender years to retain any recollection of his smiles
or endearments. My surviving parent removed to this State in 1792,
leaving me, a boy fifteen years of age, in the office of the High Court
of Chancery, in the city of Richmond, without guardian, without
pecuniary means of support, to steer my course as I might or could. A
neglected education was improved by my own irregular exertions, without
the benefit of systematic instruction. I studied law principally in the
office of a lamented friend, the late Governor Brooke, then
attorney-general of Virginia, and also under the auspices of the
venerable and lamented Chancellor Wythe, for whom I had acted as
amanuensis. I obtained a license to practise the profession from the
judges of the court of appeals of Virginia, and established myself in
Lexington in 1797, without patrons, without the favor or countenance of
the great or opulent, without the means of paying my weekly board, and
in the midst of a bar uncommonly distinguished by eminent members. I
remember how comfortable I thought I should be if I could make one
hundred pounds, Virginia money, per year, and with what delight I
received the first fifteen-shilling fee. My hopes were more than
realized. I immediately rushed into a successful and lucrative
practice."
His cases at first were largely criminal. His first marked case was that
of a woman who, in a moment of passion, shot her sister-in-law. Clay
could not bear to see a woman hanged, and she heretofore the respected
wife of a respected man. He pleaded "temporary delirium," and saved her
life.
It is said that no murderer ever suffered the extreme penalty of the law
who was defended by Henry Clay. He saved the life of one Willis, accused
of an atrocious murder. Meeting the man later, he said, "Ah! Willis,
poor fellow, I fear I have saved too many like you who ought to be
hanged." When Clay was public prosecutor, he took up the case of a
slave, much valued for his intelligence and honor, who, in the absence
of his owner, had been unmercifully treated by an overseer. In
self-defence the slave killed the overseer with an axe. Clay argued that
had the deed been done by a free man it would have been man-slaughter,
but by a slave, who should have submitted, it was murder. The colored
man was hanged, meeting death heroically. Clay was so overcome by the
painful result of his own unfortunate reasoning that he at once resigned
his position, and never ceased to be sorry for his connection with the
affair.
Sometimes the ending of a case was ludicrous as well as pathetic. Two
Germans, father and son, were indicted for murder in the first degree.
The mother and wife were present, and, of course, intensely interested.
When Clay obtained the acquittal of the accused, the old lady rushed
through the crowd, flung her arms around the neck of the stylish young
attorney, and clung to him so persistently that it was difficult for him
to free himself!
He soon began to engage more exclusively in civil suits, especially
those growing out of the land laws of Virginia and Kentucky, and quickly
acquired a leading position at the bar. He had already married, at
twenty-two, Lucretia Hart, eighteen years old, the daughter of Colonel
Thomas Hart, a well known and respected citizen of Lexington. She was a
woman of practical common-sense, devoted to him, and a tender mother to
their eleven children, six daughters and five sons.