Was the sort of a man you don't find laying round loose nowadays to any
great extent. It's a pity his brains wasn't preserved in a glass case,
where the imbecile lunatics at Washington could take a whiff
occasionally. It would do 'em good.
We are told that as a boy DANIEL was stupid, but this has been said of
so many great men that it's getting stale. Some talented men were
undoubtedly stupid boys, but it doesn't follow that every idiotic youth
will make an eminent statesman. But there are plenty of vacancies in the
statesman business. A great many men go into it, but they fail for want
of capital. If they would only stick to their legitimate business of
clam-digging, or something of that sort, we should appreciate them, and
their obituary notice would be a thing to love, because 'twould be short.
But D. WEBSTER wasn't one of this sort. He didn't force Nature. He
forgot enough every day to set five modern politicians up for life. When
he opened his mouth to speak, it didn't act upon the audience like
chloroform, nor did the senate-chamber look five minutes after like a
receiving tomb, with the bodies laying round promiscuously. I should say
not. He could wade right into the middle of a dictionary and drag out
some ideas that were wholesome. Yes, when DANIEL in that senatorial den
_did_ get his back up, the political lions just stood back and growled.
Take him altogether he was our biggest gun, and it's a pity he went off
as he did, for he was the Great Expounder of the Constitution.