MR. WEBSTER IN BOSTON.
Before his second Congressional term had expired, Mr. Webster carried
out a plan which was first suggested by the destruction of his house
and library. His talents demanded a wider arena. Moreover, his growing
family necessitated a style of living for which his professional income
was insufficient. Happily as his life had flowed on in the chief town
in his native State, he felt that he must seek a new residence. For a
time he hesitated between Albany and Boston, but happily for the latter
he decided in its favor, and in August, 1816, he removed thither with
his family, fixing his home in a house on Mt. Vernon Street, but a few
rods from the State House.
It mattered not where Daniel Webster might choose to locate himself, he
was sure to take at once a leading position both as a lawyer and a man.
He was now thirty-four years old. He had outlived his early delicacy,
and began to assume that dignity and majesty of mein which made him
everywhere a marked man. Appearances are oftentimes deceptive, but in
his case it was not so. That outward majesty which has been quaintly
described in the statement that “when Daniel Webster walked the streets
of Boston he made the buildings look small,” was but the sign and
manifestation of a corresponding intellectual greatness. By his removal
New Hampshire lost her greatest son, and Boston gained its foremost
citizen.
His expectations of a largely increased professional income were fully
realized. In Portsmouth his fees had never exceeded two thousand
dollars per year. The third year after his removal his fee-book foots
up over fifteen thousand dollars as the receipts of a single year, and
this record is probably incomplete. His biographer, Mr. Curtis, says:
“I am satisfied that his income, from 1818 until he again entered
Congress in 1823, could not have been on an average less than $20,000 a
year, though the customary fees of such counsel at that time were about
one half of what they are now.” Now, for the first time, he was able
to pay in full his father’s debts, which he had voluntarily assumed,
declining to have his small estate thrown into bankruptcy.
I shall have occasion, hereafter, to point out with regret the fact
that his expenses increased even more rapidly than his income, and
that he voluntarily incurred debts and pecuniary obligations which all
his life long harassed him, and held him in an entirely unnecessary
thraldom. On the subject of national finance Mr. Webster, as we have
seen, held the soundest views; but in the management of his own
finances, for the larger portion of his active life he displayed an
incapacity to control his expenditures and confine them within his
income which caused his best friends to grieve. In this respect, at any
rate, I cannot present the hero whom we so deservedly admire as a model.
The large increase in Mr. Webster’s income is sufficient to prove
that he was employed in the most important cases. But fifteen years
had elapsed since, as a raw graduate of a country college, he humbly
sought an opportunity to study in the office of a well-known Boston
lawyer. Now he took his place at the bar, and rapidly gained a much
higher position than the man who had kindly extended to him a welcome.
It is to the credit of Mr. Gore’s ability to read character and
judge of ability that he foresaw and predicted all this when through
his influence his student was led to decline the clerkship of a New
Hampshire court, which then would have filled the measure of his
ambition.
And how was all this gained? I can assure my young readers that no
great lawyer, no great writer, no great member of any profession,
lounges into greatness. Daniel Webster worked, and worked hard. He
rose early, not only because it gave him an opportunity of doing
considerable while he was fresh and elastic, but because he had a
country boy’s love of nature. Whether in city or country, the early
morning hours were dear to him. As Mr. Lee says, “He did a large amount
of work before others were awake in the house, and in the evening he
was ready for that sweet sleep which ‘God gives to his beloved.’”
During the period which elapsed between his arrival in Boston and his
return to Congress as a Representative of his adopted city his life was
crowded, and he appeared in many notable cases. But there was one which
merits special mention, because he was enabled to do a great service to
the college where he had been educated, and prove himself in a signal
manner a grateful and loyal son.
Of the celebrated Dartmouth College case I do not consider it necessary
for my present purpose to speak in detail. It is sufficient to say
that it was menaced with a serious peril. The chartered rights of the
college were threatened by legislative interference; nay, more, an
act was passed, and pronounced valid by the courts of New Hampshire,
which imperilled the usefulness and prosperity of the institution. The
matter was carried before the Supreme Court of the United States, and
Mr. Webster’s services were secured. The argument which he made on that
occasion established his reputation as a great lawyer. The closing
portion was listened to with absorbing interest. It was marked by deep
feeling on the part of the speaker. It is as follows:
“This, sir, is my case. It is the case not merely of that humble
institution, it is the case of every college in our land; it is
more, it is the case of every eleemosynary institution throughout
our country—of all those great charities founded by the piety of our
ancestors, to alleviate human misery, and scatter blessings along
the pathway of life. It is more! It is, in some sense, the case of
every man among us who has property of which he may stripped, for the
question is simply this: ‘Shall our State Legislatures be allowed to
take that which is not their own, to turn it from its original use, and
apply it to such ends or purposes as they in their discretion shall see
fit?’
“Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in
your hands. I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary
horizon of our country. You may put it out. But if you do so, you must
carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all
those greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have
thrown their light over our land!
“It is, sir, as I have said, a small college, and yet there are those
who love it—”
Here the orator was overcome by emotion. His lips quivered, and his
eyes filled with tears. The effect was extraordinary. All who heard
him, from Chief Justice Marshall to the humblest attendant, were borne
away on the tide of emotion as he gave expression in a few broken words
to the tenderness which he felt for his Alma Mater.
When he recovered his composure, he continued in deep, thrilling tones,
“Sir, I know not how others may feel, but for myself, when I see my
Alma Mater surrounded, like Cæsar in the Senate-house, by those who are
reiterating stab after stab, I would not, for this right hand, have her
turn to me, and say, ’Et tu quoque mi fili! And thou too, my son!’”
This speech, which was masterly in point of logic as well as a powerful
appeal to the feelings, was successful, and the opponents of the
college were disastrously defeated.