THE SECRET OF WEBSTER’S POWER.
It is hardly necessary to say that when Mr. Webster’s speech in reply
to Hayne was published and read by the country at large it made a
profound impression. Doubtless it kindled afresh in many wavering
hearts a love for that Union the claims of which upon the American
citizen the orator so strongly urged. It is interesting to know that
Hayne himself, while he essayed to answer it, appreciated its power.
Mr. Harvey relates, upon Mr. Webster’s authority, that when he had
finished his speech some Southern members approached him cordially and
said, “Mr. Webster, I think you had better die now and rest your fame
on that speech.”
Mr. Hayne, who was standing near by, and heard the remark, said, “You
ought not to die; a man who can make such speeches as that ought never
to die.”
It is related that Mr. Webster, meeting his opponent at the President’s
reception the same evening, went up to him and remarked, pleasantly,
“How are you to-night?”
“None the better for you, sir,” answered Hayne, humorously.
Henry Clay wrote later: “I congratulate you on the very great
addition which you have made during the session to your previous high
reputation. Your speeches, and particularly in reply to Mr. Hayne, are
the theme of praise from every tongue, and I have shared in the delight
which all have felt.”
In its powerful defense of the Constitution Mr. Webster carried with
him patriotic men all over the country. Hon. William Gaston, of North
Carolina, wrote thus: “The ability with which the great argument
is treated, the patriotic fervor with which the Union is asserted,
give you claim to the gratitude of every one who loves his country
and regards the Constitution as its best hope and surest stay. My
engrossing occupations leave me little leisure for any correspondence
except on business, but I have resolved to seize a moment to let you
know that with us there is scarcely a division of opinion among the
intelligent portion of the community. All of them whose understanding
or whose conscience is not surrendered to the servitude of faction,
greet your eloquent efforts with unmixed gratification.”
It is an interesting question how far Mr. Webster prepared himself for
this his greatest, or, at any rate, his most effective parliamentary
speech.
Upon this point let us read the statement of Mr. Webster himself, as
given to his tried friend, Mr. Harvey.
In reference to the remark that he had made no preparation for the
Hayne speech, he said: “That was not quite so. If it was meant that
I took notes and studied with a view to a reply, that was not true;
but that I was thoroughly conversant with the subject of debate, from
having made preparation for a totally different purpose than that
speech, is true. The preparation for my reply to Hayne was made upon
the occasion of Mr. Foote’s resolution to sell the public lands. Some
years before that, Mr. McKinley, a senator from Alabama, introduced a
resolution into the Senate, proposing to cede the public domains to
the States in which they were situated. It struck me at that time as
being so unfair and improper that I immediately prepared an argument
to resist it. My argument embraced the whole history of the public
lands, and the government’s action in regard to them. Then there was
another question involved in the Hayne debate. It was as to the
right and practice of petition. Mr. Calhoun had denied the right of
petition on the subject of slavery. In other words, he claimed that,
if the petition was for some subject which the Senate had no right
to grant, then there was no right of petition. If the Senate had no
such right, then the petitioners had no right to come there. Calhoun’s
doctrine seemed to be accepted, and I made preparation to answer
his proposition. It so happened that the debate did not take place,
because the matter never was pressed. I had my notes tucked away in
a pigeon-hole, and when Hayne made that attack upon me and upon New
England I was already posted, and only had to take down my notes and
refresh my memory. In other words, if he had tried to make a speech to
fit my notes he could not have hit it better. No man is inspired with
the occasion; I never was.”
Mr. Webster was too great a man to wish for praise which he did not
deserve. That is for men of inferior ability, who are glad to have it
believed that their most elaborate utterances are “thrown off upon the
spur of the moment.” Indeed he does not claim enough when he disclaims
being inspired by the occasion. His encomium upon New England, his
glowing peroration, were fused and put into enduring form under the
pressure of strong emotion, which may well be termed inspiration. Yet
it was always his habit to ascribe his great efforts to hard labor
rather than to genius, and he remarked to a young clergyman on one
occasion, who had questioned him in regard to some of his speeches,
“Young man, there is no such thing as extemporaneous acquisition.”
If a man like Daniel Webster felt constrained to say this, how much
more ought labor to be held necessary by the ordinary mind. My young
readers may be assured that diligent and uncomplaining toil are the
secret springs in most cases of worldly success. So, if they chance
to dash off a smooth essay in a mood of inspiration, they may have
good cause to doubt whether it has any solid value. I recall a certain
school where a prize was offered for an essay on a subject requiring a
certain amount of thought and research. The leading contestants were
two boys, one quick and brilliant, the other slow and plodding, but
sound. Both were anxious to succeed. The second began in due time and
worked steadily, not allowing himself to be unduly hurried. The first
waited till within two days of the date at which the essays were to
be submitted, and then dashed off an essay which was very creditable
under the circumstances. But it did not win. It was slow and sure that
won the prize, then, as in so many other cases. I am glad to have the
potent example of Daniel Webster to help me in enforcing a lesson so
valuable to youth.
Yet Mr. Webster was always ready of speech. He could make a great
speech upon any occasion, and upon any subject, however slight. An
illustration of this is given by Hon. John Wentworth, of Illinois, in a
letter from which I proceed to quote:
“Mr. Webster won my lasting gratitude by his assistance in the passage
of the River and Harbor bill, in 1846. The bill had passed the House
and been referred to the Committee on Commerce, a majority of whom were
of the ‘strict construction’ school, believing that Congress could
improve a natural harbor, but could not make one. I went before the
committee to defend the appropriation for a harbor at Little Fort, now
called Waukegan. I found I had no friends there but Senator Reverdy
Johnson, of Maryland. The committee recommended that the appropriation
be struck out. Senator John A. Dix, of New York, led the opposition. He
had been a graduate of West Point, was a good engineer, had brought the
map of survey into the Senate, and was having great influence against
it. I was seated in the lobby directly behind Col. Thomas H. Benton,
and Webster was upon his usual walk. He gave me a nod of recognition
and passed on. Gen. Dix kept up his fire and I felt it. Our senators,
Sidney Breese and James Semple, were both from the southern part of our
State, and had no personal knowledge of the merits of the case. The
Indiana senators were similarly situated. Wisconsin had no senators.
And the Michigan senators lived at Detroit, and they had only a general
knowledge of Lake Michigan.
“As Webster was traveling to and fro past me, the thought occurred to
me that, as he was ‘a liberal constructionist,’ he was just the man
to rectify all the damage that Gen. Dix was doing. But it was a small
matter for so great a man. Besides, I knew that his colleague, Senator
John Davis, was taking the side of Gen. Dix. As Webster would pass me
I would resolve that the next time he would come I would speak to him.
But my courage would forsake me when I reflected that he was a Whig and
I was a Democrat. I wanted some excuse to speak to him. He had known
my father. He was a son of New Hampshire, and a graduate of the same
college with myself. But my heart failed me; and yet it was all the
while sighing, ‘Webster, Webster, do but speak to me.’
“At length came his voice, in deep, sepulchral tone, ‘Wentworth, what
is Dix making all this ado about?’
“Promptly the answer came: ‘Mr. Webster, since your trip around the
lakes from Chicago, in 1837, we have had but few appropriations for old
harbors and none for new ones. This place is half way between Chicago
and Milwaukee, and we want a harbor of refuge there.’
“‘I see the point, I see the point,’ says Webster, and at once went to
his seat upon the Senate floor.
“When Gen. Dix had concluded, Mr. Webster observed that he could
add nothing to the conclusive argument of the senator from New York
in favor of the appropriation. He thought he had satisfied all the
senators that there was no harbor at the place, and so the House
must have thought when it made the appropriation to construct one
there. Upon what did the senator from New York found his doctrine
that, when God created the world, or even Lake Michigan, He left
nothing for man to do? The curse pronounced upon our first parents for
their transgression was in entire conflict with any such doctrine.
He did not believe that the Constitution of the United States was
such a narrowly contracted instrument that it would not permit the
construction of a harbor where the necessities of commerce required it.
He then foreshadowed the growth of the West, its abundant products,
its gigantic commerce, its numerous people. He started a steamer from
Chicago laden to the guards with freight and passengers. He then
described a storm in a manner that no man but Webster could describe.
His flight of eloquence equaled his best at Bunker Hill or Plymouth
Rock. You could hear the dashing waves, the whistling winds, the
creaking timbers, and the shrieking passengers, and, as he sent the
vessel to the bottom with all on board, he exclaimed: ‘What but a
merciful Providence saved me from such a catastrophe when I passed over
Lake Michigan in 1837?’ At such a dire disaster could the senator from
New York derive any consolation from the reflection that his narrow
interpretation of the Constitution had been maintained?
“As Webster closed Col. Benton turned to me and said, ‘That is the
greatest speech upon so small a matter that I ever heard.’ Reverdy
Johnson came up and said, ‘Now, don’t you abuse the Whigs any more.’
And Senator Breese said, ‘Now you can go back to the House. That speech
saves us.’
“The bill passed without amendment. But alas! President Polk vetoed
it. And out of his veto grew that wonderful event in the history of
Chicago, the river and harbor convention of 1847, a vast assemblage,
composed of the most talented, enterprising, wealthy and influential
men of all parts of the country. At the laying of the corner-stone of
the Douglas Monument, Gen. Dix was here as the principal orator. While
others were speaking I called his attention to our magnificent harbor
works. After complimenting them highly he said, ‘They ought to protect
you from any storm—even from such a one as Webster manufactured for you
in the Senate in 1846.’”
It must be remembered that this readiness of Mr. Webster arose not
wholly from his great powers, but largely from the fact that all
his life long he had been a diligent and faithful student. Hence it
was that his mind was a vast reservoir of acquisition from which he
could at will draw out what was most fitting upon any subject. So Sir
Walter Scott, browsing in his boyhood among the treasures of legendary
lore and feudal traditions, was unconsciously preparing himself for
the novels and poetical romances with which many years afterwards he
delighted the world, and made his native land famous.
Recurring to the subject of nullification, at which Mr. Webster had
aimed so powerful a blow, it may be said that it was scotched but not
killed. Col. Hayne was overwhelmed, but he was not convinced. Neither
was John C. Calhoun, the greater representative of the same State, who
entirely accorded with Hayne in his extreme views of the rights and
powers of the separate States. Not long afterwards Col. Hayne resigned
his seat in the Senate, in order to be elected Governor of South
Carolina, and lead at home the opponents of the government, while Mr.
Calhoun, resigning his place as Vice-President, was elected senator in
the place of Hayne, to lead the forces of nullification on the floor
of the Senate. Through the firmness of President Jackson their schemes
came to naught, but were revived, as we know, thirty years later by the
citizens of the same State, and the Civil War was the result.