The Convention to revise the Constitution of Massachusetts.--John
Adams a Delegate.--Mr. Webster's Share in its Proceedings.--Speeches
on Oaths of Office, Basis of Senatorial Representation, and
Independence of the Judiciary.--Centennial Anniversary at Plymouth
on the 22d of December, 1820.--Discourse delivered by Mr.
Webster.--Bunker Hill Monument, and Address by Mr. Webster on the
Laying of the Corner-Stone, 17th of June, 1825.--Discourse on the
Completion of the Monument, 17th of June, 1843.--Simultaneous
Decease of Adams and Jefferson on the 4th of July, 1826.--Eulogy by
Mr. Webster in Faneuil Hall.--Address at the Laying of the
Corner-Stone of the New Wing of the Capitol.--Remarks on the
Patriotic Discourses of Mr. Webster, and on the Character of his
Eloquence in Efforts of this Class.
In 1820, on the separation of Maine, a convention became necessary in
Massachusetts to readjust the Senate; and the occasion was deemed a
favorable one for a general revision of the constitution. The various
towns in the Commonwealth were authorized by law to choose as many
delegates as they were entitled to elect members to the House of
Representatives; and a body was constituted containing much of the
talent, political experience, and weight of character of the State. Mr.
Webster was chosen one of the delegates from Boston; and, with the
exception of a few days' service, two or three years afterwards, in the
Massachusetts House of Representatives;[9] this is the only occasion on
which he ever filled any political office under the State government
either of Massachusetts or New Hampshire.
The venerable John Adams, second President of the United States, was a
delegate to this convention from Quincy. He was the author of the
original draft of the State constitution in 1780, and although his
advanced age (he was now eighty-six years old) made it impossible for
him to take an active part in the proceedings of the convention, he
received the honor of a unanimous election as president. He declined the
appointment; and Chief Justice Parker was chosen in his place.
The convention of 1820 was no doubt as respectable a political body as
ever assembled in Massachusetts; and it is no more than justice to Mr.
Webster to say, that, although he had been but a few years a citizen of
the Commonwealth, and was personally a stranger to most of his
associates, he was among the most efficient members of the body. He was
named chairman of the committee to whom the important subject of oaths
and qualifications for office was referred, and of the special committee
on that chapter of the constitution which relates to the "University at
Cambridge." Besides taking a leading part in the discussion of most of
the important subjects which were agitated in the convention, he was the
authority most deferred to on questions of order, and in that way
exercised a steady and powerful influence over the general course of its
proceedings. It is believed that on this occasion the practice of
considering business in committee of the whole body was for the first
time adopted in Massachusetts; that mode of procedure never having
obtained in the legislature of the State. The dignified and efficient
manner in which the duties of the chair were performed by Mr. Webster,
whenever he was called to occupy it, was matter of general remark. It
has often been a subject of regret with those who witnessed the uncommon
aptitude evinced by him on these, as on similar occasions at Washington,
for the discharge of the duties of presiding officer of a deliberative
assembly, that he was never, during his Congressional career, called to
the important office of Speaker of the House of Representatives.
Considering the relation of the House to the political condition of the
country, there is no position under the government which bears more
directly upon the general character of the public counsels. The place
has occasionally, both in former times and recently, been filled with
great ability; but it has more frequently happened that speakers have
been chosen from considerations of political expediency, and without
regard to personal qualifications and fitness for the office. The
effect has been highly prejudicial to the tone of the House, and its
consequent estimation in the country. It has frequently happened that
the decisions of the Speaker, as such, have commanded no respect. An
appeal has been taken from them almost as a matter of course. The state
of things is very different in the body most nearly resembling the
houses of Congress. Such a thing as an appeal from the decision of the
Speaker on a point of order is hardly known in the British House of
Commons, and the disposition of all parties to acquiesce in, if not to
support, the decisions of the chair, is one of the characteristic
features of that assembly.
The proceedings of the Massachusetts convention were ably reported, from
day to day, in the Boston Daily Advertiser; but a contemporary report
usually implies much abridgment of the speeches. Much that was said by
Mr. Webster, as by other prominent speakers, appeared but in a condensed
form; and it is believed, that, even when reported at greatest length
and with most care, it was without the advantage of personal revision by
the speakers. The third volume of the present collection contains Mr.
Webster's remarks on those provisions of the constitution which related
to oaths of office and formed a kind of religious test, which Mr.
Webster was disposed to abolish; a speech upon the basis of senatorial
representation; and another upon the independence of the judiciary.
In the speech on the basis of the Senate, Mr. Webster defended the
principle, which was incorporated into the original constitution, and
is recognized by the liberal writers of greatest authority on
government, that due regard should be had to property in establishing
a basis of representation. He showed the connection between the
security of republican liberty and this principle. He first called
attention in this country to the fact, that this important principle was
originally developed in Harrington's Oceana, a work much studied by
our Revolutionary fathers. The practical consequence which Mr. Webster
deduced from the principle was, that constitutional and legal
provision ought to be made to produce the utmost possible diffusion
and equality of property.
It is a melancholy instance of the injustice of party, that these views
of Mr. Webster, which contain the philosophy of constitutional
republicanism as distinct from a mere democracy of numbers, have, even
down to the present day, served as the basis of a charge against him of
anti-popular principles. Having observed in the speech referred to,
"that it would seem to be the part of political wisdom to found
government on property, and to establish such a distribution of property
by the laws which regulate its transmission and alienation, as to
interest the great majority of society in the protection of the
government," the former part of this sentence has often been quoted as a
substantive rule in favor of a moneyed aristocracy, and the latter
uncandidly suppressed. It is hardly necessary to observe, that the point
at issue was the constitution of the senatorial districts on the basis
of the valuation; and that it was never proposed by Mr. Webster, or by
any body else, to apply the principle to individuals. The poor man in
the rich senatorial district possessed as much political power as his
wealthy neighbor. The principle, in fact, is but another form of that
which gave the first impulse to the American Revolution, namely, that
representation and taxation ought to go hand in hand.
While the Massachusetts convention was in session, Mr. Webster appeared
before the public in another department of intellectual effort, and with
the most distinguished success. It is hazardous for a person of great
professional eminence to venture out of his sphere; perhaps the
experiment has never before been so triumphantly made. In 1820, Mr.
Webster was invited by the Pilgrim Society at Plymouth to deliver a
discourse on the great anniversary of New England, the ever-memorable
22d of December. Several circumstances contributed on this occasion to
the interest of the day. The peaceful surrender by Massachusetts of a
portion of her territory, greatly exceeding in magnitude that which she
retained, in order to form the new State of Maine, was a pleasing
exemplification of that prosperous multiplication of independent
commonwealths within the limits of the Union, which forms one of the
most distinctive features in our history. It was as much an alienation
of territory from the local jurisdiction of Massachusetts, as if it had
been ceded to Great Britain, and yet the alienation was cordially made.
At this very time a controversy existed between the United States and
England, relative to the conflicting title of the two governments to a
very small portion, and that the least valuable part, of the same
territory, which, after the aggravations and irritations of forty years
of controversy, was in 1842 adjusted by Mr. Webster and Lord Ashburton,
at a moment when war seemed all but inevitable. In any other country or
age of the world, Maine could have been severed from Massachusetts only
by a bloody revolution. Their amicable separation by mutual consent,
although neither the first nor the second similar event in the United
States, was still an occurrence which carried back the reflections of
thoughtful men to the cradle of New England.
These reflections gathered interest from the convention then in session.
It was impossible not to feel with unusual force the contrast between
the circumstances under which the first simple compact of government,
the germ of the American constitutions, was drawn up on board the
Mayflower, and those under which the assembled experience, wisdom, and
patriotism of the State were now engaged in reorganizing the government.
Several of the topics which presented themselves to Mr. Webster's mind,
and were discussed by him at Plymouth, had entered into the debates of
the convention a few days before. Still more, the close of the second
century from the landing of the Fathers, with all its mighty series of
events in the social, political, and moral world, gave the highest
interest to the occasion. Six New England generations were to pass in
review. It was an anniversary which could be celebrated nowhere else as
it could be at Plymouth. It was such an anniversary, with its store of
traditions, comparisons, and anticipations, as none then living could
witness again. The Pilgrim Society gave utterance to the unanimous
feeling of the community, in calling upon Mr. Webster to speak for the
whole people of New England, at home and abroad, on this great
occasion.
The discourse delivered by him in pursuance of their invitation, in some
respects the most remarkable of his performances, begins the series of
his works contained in the present collection. The felicity and spirit
with which its descriptive portions are executed; the affecting tribute
which it pays to the memory of the Pilgrims; the moving picture of their
sufferings on both sides of the water; the masterly exposition and
analysis of those institutions to which the prosperity of New England
under Providence is owing; the eloquent inculcation of those great
principles of republicanism on which our American commonwealths are
founded; the instructive survey of the past, the sublime anticipations
of the future of America,--have long since given this discourse a
classical celebrity. Several of its soul-stirring passages have become
as household words throughout the country. They are among the most
favorite of the extracts contained in the school-books. An entire
generation of young men have derived from this noble performance some of
their first lessons in the true principles of American republicanism. It
obtained at once a wide circulation throughout the country, and gave to
Mr. Webster a position among the popular writers and speakers of the
United States scarcely below that which he had already attained as a
lawyer and a statesman. It is doubtful whether any extra-professional
literary effort by a public man has attained equal celebrity.
In the course of a few years, when the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill
Monument was to be laid, on the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, the
general expectation again pointed to Mr. Webster as the orator of the
day. This, too, was a great national and patriotic anniversary. For the
first time, and after the lapse of a half-century, the commencement of
the war of the American Revolution was to be publicly celebrated under
novel, significant, and highly affecting circumstances. Fifty years had
extinguished all the unkindly associations of the day, and raised it
from the narrow sphere of local history to a high place in the annals of
the world. A great confederacy had sprung from the blood of Bunker Hill.
This was too important an event in the history of the world to be
surrendered to hostile and party feeling. No friend of representative
government in England had reason to deplore the foundation of the
American republics. No one can doubt that the development of the
representative principle in this country has contributed greatly to
promote the cause of Parliamentary reform in Great Britain. Other
considerations gave great interest to the festival of the 17th of June,
1825. Fifty years of national life, fortune, and experience, not
exhibiting in their detail an unvarying series of prosperity, (for it
was fifty years in the history, not of angels, but of men,) but
assuredly not surpassed in the grand aggregate by any half-century in
the annals of the world, were now brought to a close. Vast as the
contrast was in the condition of the country at the beginning and close
of the period, there were still living venerable men who had acted
prominent and efficient parts in the opening scenes of the drama. Men
who had shared the perils of 1775 shared the triumph of the jubilee.
More than a hundred of the heroes of the battle were among the joyous
participators in this great festival. Not the least affecting incident
of the celebration was the presence of Lafayette, who had hastened from
his more than royal progress through the Union to take a part in the
ceremonial.
It is unnecessary to say, that on such an occasion, with all these
circumstances addressed to the imaginations and the thoughts of men, in
the presence of a vast multitude of the intelligent population of
Massachusetts and the other New England States, with no inconsiderable
attendance of kindred and descendants from every part of the Union, an
address from such an orator as Mr. Webster, on such a platform, on such
a theme, in the flower of his age and the maturity of his faculties,
discoursing upon an occasion of transcendent interest, and kindling with
the enthusiasm of the day and the spot, may well be regarded as an
intellectual treat of the highest order. Happy the eyes that saw that
most glorious gathering! Happy the ears that heard the heart-stirring
strain!
Scarcely inferior in interest was the anniversary celebration, when the
Bunker Hill Monument was finally completed, in 1843, and Mr. Webster
again consented to address the immense multitude which the ceremonial
could not fail to bring together. In addition to all the other sources
of public interest belonging to the occasion, the completion itself of
the structure was one to which the community attached great importance.
It had been an object steadily pursued, under circumstances of
considerable discouragement, by a large number of liberal and patriotic
individuals, for nearly a quarter of a century. The great work was now
finished; and the most important event in the history of New England was
henceforward commemorated by a monument destined, in all human
probability, to last as long as any work erected by the hands of man.
The thrill of admiration which ran through the assembled thousands,
when, at the commencement of his discourse on that occasion, Mr. Webster
apostrophized the monument itself as the mute orator of the day, has
been spoken of by those who had the good fortune to be present as an
emotion beyond the power of language to describe. The gesture, the look,
the tone of the speaker, as he turned to the majestic shaft, seemed to
invest it with a mysterious life; and men held their breath as if a
solemn voice was about to come down from its towering summit. This
address does not appear to have had the advantage possessed by those of
Plymouth in 1820, and of Bunker Hill in 1825, in having been written out
for the press by Mr. Webster. It seems to have been prepared for
publication from the reporter's notes, with some hasty revision,
perhaps, by the author.
On the 4th of July, 1826, occurred the extraordinary coincidence of the
deaths of Adams and Jefferson, within a few hours of each other, on the
fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence; an event with
which they were both so closely connected, as members of the committee
by which the ever-memorable state paper was prepared and brought into
the Continental Congress. The public mind was already predisposed for
patriotic emotions and sentiments of every kind by many conspiring
causes. The recency of the Revolutionary contest, sufficiently
illustrated by the fact that many of those engaged in it were still
alive and had been the subjects of liberal provision by Congress; the
complete, though temporary, fusion of parties, producing for a few years
a political lull, never witnessed to the same extent before or since;
the close of the half-century from the commencement of the Revolutionary
War, and the commemoration of its early conflicts on many of the spots
where they occurred; the foundation of the Bunker Hill Monument, and of
a similar work on a smaller scale at Concord; the visit of Lafayette;
abroad, the varying scenes of the Greek revolution and the popular
movement in many other parts of Europe,--united in exciting the public
mind in this country. They kindled to new fervor the susceptible and
impulsive American temperament. The simultaneous decease of the
illustrious patriarchs of the Revolution, under these circumstances of
coincidence, fell upon a community already prepared to be deeply
affected. It touched a tender chord, which vibrated from one end of the
Union to the other. The affecting event was noticed throughout the
country. Cities and States vied with each other in demonstrations of
respect for the memory of the departed. The heart of the country poured
itself forth in one general utterance of reverential feeling. Nowhere
was the wonderful event noticed with greater earnestness and solemnity
of public sentiment than in Boston. Faneuil Hall was shrouded in black.
Perhaps for the first time since its erection an organ was placed in the
gallery, and a sublime funeral service was performed. It is unnecessary
to dwell upon the effect of preparations like these upon an intelligent
audience, assembled under highly wrought feeling. They produced a tone
of mind in unison with the magnificent effort of thought which was to
follow.
It has, perhaps, never been the fortune of an orator to treat a subject
in all respects so extraordinary as that which called forth the eulogy
on Adams and Jefferson; a subject in which the characters commemorated,
the field of action, the magnitude of the events, and the peculiar
personal relations, were so important and unusual. Certainly it is not
extravagant to add, that no similar effort of oratory was ever more
completely successful. The speech ascribed to John Adams in the
Continental Congress, on the subject of declaring the independence of
the Colonies,--a speech of which the topics of course present themselves
on the most superficial consideration of the subject, but of which a few
hints only of what was actually said are supplied by the letters and
diaries of Mr. Adams,--is not excelled by any thing of the kind in our
language. Few things have taken so strong a hold of the public mind. It
thrills and delights alike the student of history, who recognizes it at
once as the creation of the orator, and the common reader, who takes it
to be the composition, not of Mr. Webster, but of Mr. Adams. From the
time the eulogy was delivered to the present day, the inquiry has been
often made and repeated, sometimes even in letters addressed to Mr.
Webster himself, whether this exquisite appeal is his or Mr. Adams's. An
answer to a letter of this kind will be found appended to the eulogy in
the present edition.
These discourses, with the exception of the second Bunker Hill
Address, were delivered within about five years of each other; the
first on the 22d of December, 1820, the last on the 2d of August, 1826.
With the exception named, Mr. Webster has excused himself from the
delivery of public addresses of this class, though continually invited
from almost every part of the country and upon occasions of every kind.
Within the last twelvemonth, however, he has yielded himself to the
peculiar and urgent condition of public affairs, and has addressed his
fellow-citizens on several occasions not immediately connected with
senatorial or professional duty, and with the power and felicity
which mark his earlier efforts. The most remarkable of these recent
addresses is his speech delivered at Washington on the 4th of July,
1851, at the ceremonial of the laying of the corner-stone of the
addition to the Capitol. This ceremonial, itself of no ordinary
interest, and the aspect of public affairs under which it was performed,
gave a peculiar fervor and solemnity to Mr. Webster's treatment of the
subject. Never, perhaps, were the principles to which the great day is
consecrated unfolded in a few paragraphs with greater precision and
comprehensiveness; or the auspicious influence of these principles on
the progress of the country more happily set forth. The contrast
between the United States of 1793, when the corner-stone of the original
Capitol was laid by President Washington, and the United States of 1851,
when this enlargement became necessary, is brought out with great skill
and discrimination. The appeal to the Southern States, whether the
government under which the Union has grown and prospered is a
blessing or a curse to the country, is a burst of the highest
eloquence. The allusion and apostrophe to Washington will be rehearsed
by the generous youth of America as long as the English language is
spoken on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
This great oration, perhaps not premeditated so carefully, as far as the
mere language is concerned, as those of an earlier date with which we
have classed it, is not inferior to either of them in the essentials of
patriotic eloquence. It belongs, in common with them, to a species of
oratory neither forensic, nor parliamentary, nor academical; and which
might perhaps conveniently enough be described by the epithet which we
have just applied to it,--the patriotic. These addresses are strongly
discriminated from the forensic and the parliamentary class of speeches,
in being from the nature of the case more elaborately prepared. The
public taste in a highly cultivated community would not admit, in a
performance of this kind, those marks of extemporaneous execution,
which it not only tolerates, but admires, in the unpremeditated efforts
of the senate and the bar. The latter shines to greatest advantage in
happy impromptu strokes, whether of illustration or argument; the former
admits, and therefore demands, the graceful finish of a mature
preparation.[10]
It is not, indeed, to be supposed, that an orator like Mr. Webster is
slavishly tied down, on any occasion, to his manuscript notes, or to a
_memoriter_ repetition of their contents. It may be presumed that in
many cases the noblest and the boldest flights, the last and warmest
tints thrown upon the canvas, in discourses of this kind, were the
unpremeditated inspiration of the moment of delivery. The opposite view
would be absurd, because it would imply that the mind, under the high
excitement of delivery, was less fertile and creative than in the repose
of the closet. A speaker could not, if he attempted it, anticipate in
his study the earnestness and fervor of spirit induced by actual contact
with the audience; he could not by any possibility forestall the
sympathetic influence upon his imagination and intellect of the
listening and applauding throng. However severe the method required by
the nature of the occasion, or dictated by his own taste, a speaker like
Mr. Webster will not often confine himself "to pouring out fervors a
week old."
The orator who would do justice to a great theme or a great occasion
must thoroughly study and understand the subject; he must accurately,
and if possible minutely, digest in writing beforehand the substance,
and even the form, of his address; otherwise, though he may speak ably,
he will be apt not to make in all respects an able speech. He must
entirely possess himself beforehand of the main things which he wishes
to say, and then throw himself upon the excitement of the moment and the
sympathy of the audience. In those portions of his discourse which are
didactic or narrative, he will not be likely to wander, in any
direction, far from his notes; although even in those portions new
facts, illustrations, and suggestions will be apt to spring up before
him as he proceeds. But when the topic rises, when the mind kindles from
within, and the strain becomes loftier, or bolder, or more pathetic,
when the sacred fountain of tears is ready to overflow, and audience and
speaker are moved by one kindred sympathetic passion, then the
thick-coming fancies cannot be kept down, the storehouse of the memory
is unlocked, images start up from the slumber of years, and all that the
orator has seen, read, heard, or felt returns in distinct shape and
vivid colors. The cold and premeditated text will no longer suffice for
the glowing thought. The stately, balanced phrase gives place to some
abrupt, graphic expression, that rushes unbidden to his lips. The
unforeseen incident or locality furnishes an apt and speaking image; and
the discourse instinctively transposes itself into a higher key.
Many illustrations of these remarks may be found in the following
volumes. We may refer particularly to the address to the survivors of
the Revolution and the apostrophe to Warren in the first discourse on
Bunker Hill. These were topics too obvious and essential, in an address
on laying the corner-stone of the monument, to have been omitted in the
orator's notes prepared beforehand. But no one will think that the
entire apostrophe to Warren, as it stands in the reported speech, was
elaborated in the closet and committed to memory. In fact there is a
slight grammatical inaccuracy, caused by passing from the third person
to the second in the same sentence, which is at once the natural
consequence and the proof of an unpremeditated expansion or elevation of
the preconceived idea. We see the process. When the sentence commenced,
"But, ah! him!" it was evidently in the mind of the orator to close it
by saying, "How shall I speak of him?" But in the progress of the
sentence, forgetful, unconscious, of the grammatical form, but melting
with the thought, beholding, as he stood upon the spot where the hero
fell, his beloved and beautiful image rising from the ground, he can no
longer speak of him. Willing subject of his own witchery, he clothes his
conception with sensible forms, and speaks _to_ the glorious being whom
he has called back to life. He no longer attempts to discourse of Warren
to the audience, but passing, after a few intervening clauses, from the
third person to the second, he exclaims, "How shall I struggle with the
emotions that stifle the utterance of _thy_ name! Our poor work may
perish, but thine shall endure! This monument may moulder away; the
solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but
thy memory shall not fail!"
FOOTNOTES
[9] Mr. Webster makes the following playful allusion to this
circumstance in a speech at a public dinner in Syracuse (New
York), in the month of May of the present year:--
"It has so happened that all the public services which I have
rendered in the world, in my day and generation, have been
connected with the general government. I think I ought to make
an exception. I was ten days a member of the Massachusetts
legislature, and I turned my thoughts to the search for some
good object in which I could be useful in that position; and,
after much reflection, I introduced a bill which, with the
general consent of both houses of the Massachusetts legislature,
passed into a law, and is now a law of the State, which enacts
that no man in the State shall catch trout in any other manner
than in the old way, with an ordinary hook and line."
[10] The leading ideas in this and the following paragraph may be found
in a review of Mr. Webster's Speeches, in the North American
Review, Vol. XLI. p. 241, written by the author of this Memoir.