LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE.
The occasion of Mr. Webster's first appearance in court has been the
subject of varying tradition. It is certain, however, that in the counties
where he practised during his residence at Boscawen, he made an unusual and
very profound impression. The effect then produced is described in homely
phrase by one who knew him well. The reference is to a murder trial, in
which Mr. Webster gained his first celebrity.
"There was a man tried for his life, and the judges chose Webster
to plead for him; and, from what I can learn, he never has spoken
better than he did there where he first began. He was a black,
raven-haired fellow, with an eye as black as death's, and as heavy
as a lion's,--that same heavy look, not sleepy, but as if he didn't
care about anything that was going on about him or anything
anywhere else. He didn't look as if he was thinking about anything,
but as if he _would_ think like a hurricane if he once got waked up
to it. They say the lion looks so when he is quiet.... Webster
would sometimes be engaged to argue a case just as it was coming to
trial. That would set him to thinking. It wouldn't wrinkle his
forehead, but made him restless. He would shift his feet about, and
run his hand up over his forehead, through his Indian-black hair,
and lift his upper lip and show his teeth, which were as white as a
hound's."
Of course the speech so admired then was infinitely below what was done
afterwards. The very next was probably better, for Mr. Webster grew
steadily. This observer, however, tells us not what Mr. Webster said, but
how he looked. It was the personal presence which dwelt with every one at
this time.
Thus with his wonderful leonine look and large, dark eyes, and with the
growing fame which he had won, Mr. Webster betook himself to Portsmouth. He
had met some of the leading lawyers already, but now he was to be brought
into direct and almost daily competition with them. At that period in New
England there was a great rush of men of talent to the bar, then casting
off its colonial fetters and emerging to an independent life. The pulpit
had ceased to attract, as of old; medicine was in its infancy; there were
none of the other manifold pursuits of to-day, and politics did not offer a
career apart. Outside of mercantile affairs, therefore, the intellectual
forces of the old Puritan commonwealths, overflowing with life, and feeling
the thrill of youthful independence and the confidence of rapid growth in
business, wealth, and population, were concentrated in the law. Even in a
small State like New Hampshire, presenting very limited opportunities,
there was, relatively speaking, an extraordinary amount of ability among
the members of the bar, notwithstanding the fact that they had but just
escaped from the condition of colonists. Common sense was the divinity of
both the courts and the profession. The learning was not extensive or
profound, but practical knowledge, sound principles, and shrewd management
were conspicuous. Jeremiah Smith, the Chief Justice, a man of humor and
cultivation, was a well read and able judge; George Sullivan was ready of
speech and fertile in expedients; and Parsons and Dexter of Massachusetts,
both men of national reputation, appeared from time to time in the New
Hampshire courts. Among the most eminent was William Plumer, then Senator,
and afterwards Governor of the State, a well-trained, clear-headed,
judicious man. He was one of Mr. Webster's early antagonists, and defeated
him in their first encounter. Yet at the same time, although a leader of
the bar and a United States Senator, he seems to have been oppressed with a
sense of responsibility and even of inequality by this thin, black-eyed
young lawyer from the back country. Mr. Plumer was a man of cool and
excellent judgment, and he thought that Mr. Webster on this occasion was
too excursive and declamatory. He also deemed him better fitted by mind and
temperament for politics than for the law, an opinion fully justified in
the future, despite Mr. Webster's eminence at the bar. In another case,
where they were opposed, Mr. Plumer quoted a passage from Peake's "Law of
Evidence." Mr. Webster criticised the citation as bad law, pronounced the
book a miserable two-penny compilation, and then, throwing it down with a
fine disdain, said, "So much for Mr. Thomas Peake's compendium of the 'Law
of Evidence.'" Such was his manner that every one present appeared to think
the point settled, and felt rather ashamed of ever having heard of Mr.
Peake or his unfortunate book. Thereupon Mr. Plumer produced a volume of
reports by which it appeared that the despised passage was taken word for
word from one of Lord Mansfield's decisions. The wretched Peake's character
was rehabilitated, and Mr. Webster silenced. This was an illustration of a
failing of Mr. Webster at that time. He was rough and unceremonious, and
even overbearing, both to court and bar, the natural result of a new sense
of power in an inexperienced man. This harshness of manner, however, soon
disappeared. He learned rapidly to practise the stately and solemn courtesy
which distinguished him through life.
There was one lawyer, however, at the head of his profession in New
Hampshire, who had more effect upon Mr. Webster than any other whom he ever
met there or elsewhere. This was the man to whom the Shaker said: "By thy
size and thy language[1] I judge that thou art Jeremiah Mason." Mr. Mason
was one of the greatest common-lawyers this country has ever produced. Keen
and penetrating in intellect, he was master of a relentless logic and of a
style which, though simple and homely, was clear and correct to the last
point. Slow and deliberate in his movements, and sententious in his
utterances, he dealt so powerfully with evidence and so lucidly with
principles of law that he rarely failed to carry conviction to his hearers.
He was particularly renowned for his success in getting verdicts. Many
years afterwards Mr. Webster gave it as his deliberate opinion that he had
never met with a stronger intellect, a mind of more native resources or
quicker and deeper vision than were possessed by Mr. Mason, whom in mental
reach and grasp and in closeness of reasoning he would not allow to be
second even to Chief Justice Marshall. Mr. Mason on his side, with his
usual sagacity, at once detected the great talents of Mr. Webster. In the
first case where they were opposed, a murder trial, Mr. Webster took the
place of the Attorney-General for the prosecution. Mr. Mason, speaking of
the impression made by his youthful and then unknown opponent, said:--
"He broke upon me like a thunder shower in July, sudden,
portentous, sweeping all before it. It was the first case in which
he appeared at our bar; a criminal prosecution in which I had
arranged a very pretty defence, as against the Attorney-General,
Atkinson, who was able enough in his way, but whom I knew very well
how to take. Atkinson being absent, Webster conducted the case for
him, and turned, in the most masterly manner, the line of my
defences, carrying with him all but one of the jurors, so that I
barely saved my client by my best exertions. I was nevermore
surprised than by this remarkable exhibition of unexpected power.
It surpassed, in some respects, anything which I have ever since
seen even in him."
[Footnote 1: Mr. Mason, as is well known, was six feet seven inches in
height, and his language, always very forcible and direct, was, when he was
irritated, if we may trust tradition, at times somewhat profane.]
With all his admiration for his young antagonist, however, one cannot help
noticing that the generous and modest but astute counsel for the defence
ended by winning his case.
Fortune showered many favors upon Mr. Webster, but none more valuable than
that of having Jeremiah Mason as his chief opponent at the New Hampshire
bar. Mr. Mason had no spark of envy in his composition. He not only
regarded with pleasure the great abilities of Mr. Webster, but he watched
with kindly interest the rapid rise which soon made this stranger from the
country his principal competitor and the champion commonly chosen to meet
him in the courts. He gave Mr. Webster his friendship, staunch and
unvarying, until his death; he gave freely also of his wisdom and
experience in advice and counsel. Best of all was the opportunity of
instruction and discipline which Mr. Webster gained by repeated contests
with such a man. The strong qualities of Mr. Webster's mind rapidly
developed by constant practice and under such influences. He showed more
and more in every case his wonderful instinct for seizing on the very heart
of a question, and for extricating the essential points from the midst of
confused details and clashing arguments. He displayed, too, more strongly
every day his capacity for close, logical reasoning and for telling retort,
backed by a passion and energy none the less effective from being but
slowly called into activity. In a word, the unequalled power of stating
facts or principles, which was the predominant quality of Mr. Webster's
genius, grew steadily with a vigorous vitality while his eloquence
developed in a similar striking fashion. Much of this growth and
improvement was due to the sharp competition and bright example of Mr.
Mason. But the best lesson that Mr. Webster learned from his wary yet
daring antagonist was in regard to style. When he saw Mr. Mason go close to
the jury box, and in a plain style and conversational manner, force
conviction upon his hearers, and carry off verdict after verdict, Mr.
Webster felt as he had never done before the defects of his own modes of
expression. His florid phrases looked rather mean, insincere, and
tasteless, besides being weak and ineffective. From that time he began to
study simplicity and directness, which ended in the perfection of a style
unsurpassed in modern oratory. The years of Mr. Webster's professional life
in Portsmouth under the tuition of Mr. Mason were of inestimable service to
him.
Early in this period, also, Mr. Webster gave up his bachelor existence, and
made for himself a home. When he first appeared at church in Portsmouth the
minister's daughter noted and remembered his striking features and look,
and regarded him as one with great capacities for good or evil. But the
interesting stranger was not destined to fall a victim to any of the young
ladies of Portsmouth. In the spring of 1808 he slipped away from his new
friends and returned to Salisbury, where, in May, he was married. The bride
he brought back to Portsmouth was Grace Fletcher, daughter of the minister
of Hopkinton. Mr. Webster is said to have seen her first at church in
Salisbury, whither she came on horseback in a tight-fitting black velvet
dress, and looking, as he said, "like an angel." She was certainly a very
lovely and charming woman, of delicate and refined sensibilities and bright
and sympathetic mind. She was a devoted wife, the object of her husband's
first and strongest love, and the mother of his children. It is very
pleasant to look at Mr. Webster in his home during these early years of his
married life. It was a happy, innocent, untroubled time. He was advancing
in his profession, winning fame and respect, earning a sufficient income,
blessed in his domestic relations, and with his children growing up about
him. He was social by nature, and very popular everywhere. Genial and
affectionate in disposition, he attached everybody to him, and his hearty
humor, love of mimicry, and fund of anecdote made him a delightful
companion, and led Mr. Mason to say that the stage had lost a great actor
in Webster.
But while he was thus enjoying professional success and the contented
happiness of his fireside, he was slowly but surely drifting into the
current of politics, whither his genius led him, and which had for him an
irresistible attraction. Mr. Webster took both his politics and his
religion from his father, and does not appear to have questioned either. He
had a peculiarly conservative cast of mind. In an age of revolution and
scepticism he showed no trace of the questioning spirit which then
prevailed. Even in his earliest years he was a firm believer in existing
institutions, in what was fixed and established. He had a little of the
disposition of Lord Thurlow, who, when asked by a dissenter why, being a
notorious free-thinker, he so ardently supported the Established Church,
replied: "I support the Church of England because it is established.
Establish your religion, and I'll support that." But if Mr. Webster took
his religion and politics from his father in an unquestioning spirit, he
accepted them in a mild form. He was a liberal Federalist because he had a
wide mental vision, and by nature took broad views of everything. His
father, on the other hand, was a rigid, intolerant Federalist of a
thorough-going Puritan type. Being taken ill once in a town of Democratic
proclivities, he begged to be carried home. "I was born a Federalist," he
said, "I have lived a Federalist, and I won't die in a Democratic town." In
the same way Ezekiel Webster's uncompromising Federalism shut him out from
political preferment, and he would never modify his principles one jot in
order to gain the seat in Congress which he might easily have obtained by
slight concessions. The broad and liberal spirit of Daniel Webster rose
superior to the rigid and even narrow opinions of his father and brother,
but perhaps it would have been better for him if he had had in addition to
his splendid mind the stern, unbending force of character which made his
father and brother stand by their principles with immovable Puritan
determination. Liberal as he was, however, in his political opinions, the
same conservative spirit which led him to adopt his creed made him sustain
it faithfully and constantly when he had once accepted it. He was a steady
and trusted party man, although neither then nor at any time a blind,
unreasoning partisan.
Mr. Webster came forward gradually as a political leader by occasional
addresses and speeches, at first with long intervals between them, and then
becoming more frequent, until at last he found himself fairly engaged in a
public career. In 1804, at the request of some of his father's friends, he
published a pamphlet, entitled, "An Appeal to Old Whigs," in the interest
of Gilman, the Federal candidate for governor. He seems to have had a very
poor opinion of this performance, and his interest in the success of the
party at that juncture was very slight. In 1805 he delivered a Fourth of
July oration at Salisbury, which has not been preserved; and in the
following year he gave another before the "Federal gentlemen" of Concord,
which was published. The tone of this speech is not very partisan, nor does
it exhibit the bitter spirit of the Federalists, although he attacked the
administration, was violent in urging the protection of commerce, and was
extremely savage in his remarks about France. At times the style is
forcible, and even rich, but, as a rule, it is still strained and
artificial. The oration begins eagerly with an appeal for the Constitution
and the Republic, the ideas always uppermost in Mr. Webster's mind. As a
whole, it shows a distinct improvement in form, but there are no marks of
genius to raise it above the ordinary level of Fourth of July speeches. His
next production was a little pamphlet, published in 1808, on the embargo,
which was then paralyzing New England, and crushing out her prosperity.
This essay is important because it is the first clear instance of that
wonderful faculty which Mr. Webster had of seizing on the vital point of a
subject, and bringing it out in such a way that everybody could see and
understand it. In this case the point was the distinction between a
temporary embargo and one of unlimited duration. Mr. Webster contended that
the latter was unconstitutional. The great mischief of the embargo was in
Jefferson's concealed intention that it should be unlimited in point of
time, a piece of recklessness and deceit never fully appreciated until it
had all passed into history. This Mr. Webster detected and brought out as
the most illegal and dangerous feature of the measure, while he also
discussed the general policy in its fullest extent. In 1809 he spoke before
the Phi Beta Kappa Society, upon "The State of our Literature," an address
without especial interest except as showing a very marked improvement in
style, due, no doubt, to the influence of Mr. Mason.
During the next three years Mr. Webster was completely absorbed in the
practice of his profession, and not until the declaration of war with
England had stirred and agitated the whole country did he again come before
the public. The occasion of his reappearance was the Fourth of July
celebration in 1812, when he addressed the Washington Benevolent Society at
Portsmouth. The speech was a strong, calm statement of the grounds of
opposition to the war. He showed that "maritime defence, commercial
regulations, and national revenue" were the very corner-stones of the
Constitution, and that these great interests had been crippled and abused
by the departure from Washington's policy. He developed, with great force,
the principal and the most unanswerable argument of his party, that the
navy had been neglected and decried because it was a Federalist scheme,
when a navy was what we wanted above all things, and especially when we
were drifting into a maritime conflict. He argued strongly in favor of a
naval war, and measures of naval defence, instead of wasting our resources
by an invasion of Canada. So far he went strictly with his party, merely
invigorating and enforcing their well-known principles. But when he came to
defining the proper limits of opposition to the war he modified very
essentially the course prescribed by advanced Federalist opinions. The
majority of that party in New England were prepared to go to the very edge
of the narrow legal line which divides constitutional opposition from
treasonable resistance. They were violent, bitter, and uncompromising in
their language and purposes. From this Mr. Webster was saved by his breadth
of view, his clear perceptions, and his intense national feeling. He says
on this point:--
"With respect to the war in which we are now involved, the course
which our principles require us to pursue cannot be doubtful. It is
now the law of the land, and as such we are bound to regard it.
Resistance and insurrection form no part of our creed. The
disciples of Washington are neither tyrants in power nor rebels
out. If we are taxed to carry on this war we shall disregard
certain distinguished examples and shall pay. If our personal
services are required we shall yield them to the precise extent of
our constitutional liability. At the same time the world may be
assured that we know our rights and shall exercise them. We shall
express our opinions on this, as on every measure of the
government,--I trust without passion, I am certain without fear. By
the exercise of our constitutional right of suffrage, by the
peaceable remedy of election, we shall seek to restore wisdom to
our councils, and peace to our country."
This was a sensible and patriotic opposition. It represented the views of
the moderate Federalists, and traced the lines which Mr. Webster
consistently followed during the first years of his public life. The
address concluded by pointing out the French trickery which had provoked
the war, and by denouncing an alliance with French despotism and ambition.
This oration was printed, and ran at once through two editions. It led to
the selection of Mr. Webster as a delegate to an assembly of the people of
the county of Rockingham, a sort of mass convention, held in August, 1812.
There he was placed on the committee to prepare the address, and was chosen
to write their report, which was adopted and published. This important
document, widely known at the time as the "Rockingham Memorial," was a
careful argument against the war, and a vigorous and able presentation of
the Federalist views. It was addressed to the President, whom it treated
with respectful severity. With much skill it turned Mr. Madison's own
arguments against himself, and appealed to public opinion by its clear and
convincing reasoning. In one point the memorial differed curiously from the
oration of a month before. The latter pointed to the suffrage as the mode
of redress; the former distinctly hinted at and almost threatened secession
even while it deplored a dissolution of the Union as a possible result of
the administration's policy. In the one case Mr. Webster was expressing his
own views, in the other he was giving utterance to the opinions of the
members of his party among whom he stood. This little incident shows the
susceptibility to outside influences which formed such an odd trait in the
character of a man so imperious by nature. When acting alone, he spoke his
own opinions. When in a situation where public opinion was concentrated
against him, he submitted to modifications of his views with a curious and
indolent indifference.
The immediate result to Mr. Webster of the ability and tact which he
displayed at the Rockingham Convention was his election to the thirteenth
Congress, where he took his seat in May, 1813. There were then many able
men in the House. Mr. Clay was Speaker, and on the floor were John C.
Calhoun, Langdon Cheves and William Lowndes of South Carolina, Forsyth and
Troup of Georgia, Ingersoll of Pennsylvania, Grundy of Tennessee, and
McLean of Ohio, all conspicuous in the young nationalist war party. Macon
and Eppes were representatives of the old Jeffersonian Republicans, while
the Federalists were strong in the possession of such leaders as Pickering
of Massachusetts, Pitkin of Connecticut, Grosvenor and Benson of New York,
Hanson of Maryland, and William Gaston of North Carolina. It was a House in
which any one might have been glad to win distinction. That Mr. Webster was
considered, at the outset, to be a man of great promise is shown by the
fact that he was placed on the Committee on Foreign Relations, of which Mr.
Calhoun was the head, and which, in the war time, was the most important
committee of the House.
Mr. Webster's first act was a characteristic one. Early in June he
introduced a set of resolutions calling upon the President for information
as to the time and mode in which the repeal of the French decrees had been
communicated to our government. His unerring sagacity in singling out the
weak point in his enemy's armor and in choosing his own keenest weapon, was
never better illustrated than on this occasion. We know now that in the
negotiations for the repeal of the decrees, the French government tricked
us into war with England by most profligate lying. It was apparent then
that there was something wrong, and that either our government had been
deceived, or had withheld the publication of the repealing decree until war
was declared, so that England might not have a pretext for rescinding the
obnoxious orders. Either horn of the dilemma, therefore, was disagreeable
to the administration, and a disclosure could hardly fail to benefit the
Federalists. Mr. Webster supported his resolutions with a terse and simple
speech of explanation, so far as we can judge from the meagre abstract
which has come down to us. The resolutions, however, were a firebrand, and
lighted up an angry and protracted debate, but the ruling party, as Mr.
Webster probably foresaw, did not dare to vote them down, and they passed
by large majorities. Mr. Webster spoke but once, and then very briefly,
during the progress of the debate, and soon after returned to New
Hampshire. With the exception of these resolutions, he took no active part
whatever in the business of the House beyond voting steadily with his
party, a fact of which we may be sure because he was always on the same
side as that staunch old partisan, Timothy Pickering.
After a summer passed in the performance of his professional duties, Mr.
Webster returned to Washington. He was late in his coming, Congress having
been in session nearly three weeks when he arrived to find that he had been
dropped from the Committee on Foreign Relations. The dominant party
probably discovered that he was a young man of rather too much promise and
too formidable an opponent for such an important post. His resolutions had
been answered at the previous session, after his departure, and the report,
which consisted of a lame explanation of the main point, and an elaborate
defence of the war, had been quietly laid aside. Mr. Webster desired debate
on this subject, and succeeded in carrying a reference of the report to a
committee of the whole, but his opponents prevented its ever coming to
discussion. In the long session which ensued, Mr. Webster again took
comparatively little part in general business, but he spoke oftener than
before. He seems to have been reserving his strength and making sure of his
ground. He defended the Federalists as the true friends of the navy, and he
resisted with great power the extravagant attempt to extend martial law to
all citizens suspected of treason. On January 14, 1814, he made a long and
well reported speech against a bill to encourage enlistments. This is the
first example of the eloquence which Mr. Webster afterwards carried to such
high perfection. Some of his subsequent speeches far surpass this one, but
they differ from it in degree, not in kind. He was now master of the style
at which he aimed. The vehicle was perfected and his natural talent gave
that vehicle abundance of thought to be conveyed. The whole speech is
simple in form, direct and forcible. It has the elasticity and vigor of
great strength, and glows with eloquence in some passages. Here, too, we
see for the first time that power of deliberate and measured sarcasm which
was destined to become in his hands such a formidable weapon. The florid
rhetoric of the early days is utterly gone, and the thought comes to us in
those short and pregnant sentences and in the choice and effective words
which were afterwards so typical of the speaker. The speech itself was a
party speech and a presentation of party arguments. It offered nothing new,
but the familiar principles had hardly ever been stated in such a striking
and impressive fashion. Mr. Webster attacked the war policy and the conduct
of the war, and advocated defensive warfare, a navy, and the abandonment of
the restrictive laws that were ruining our commerce, which had been the
main cause of the adoption of the Constitution. The conclusion of this
speech is not far from the level of Mr. Webster's best work. It is too long
for quotation, but a few sentences will show its quality:--
"Give up your futile projects of invasion. Extinguish the fires
that blaze on your inland frontier. Establish perfect safety and
defence there by adequate force. Let every man that sleeps on your
soil sleep in security. Stop the blood that flows from the veins of
unarmed yeomanry and women and children. Give to the living time to
bury and lament their dead in the quietness of private sorrow.
Having performed this work of beneficence and mercy on your inland
border, turn, and look with the eye of justice and compassion on
your vast population along the coast. Unclench the iron grasp of
your embargo. Take measures for that end before another sun
sets.... Let it no longer be said that not one ship of force, built
by your hands, yet floats upon the ocean.... If then the war must
be continued, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for
maritime rights, go to the theatre where alone those rights can be
defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you.
There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with
you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at
the water's edge."
Events soon forced the policy urged by Mr. Webster upon the administration,
whose friends carried first a modification of the embargo, and before the
close of the session introduced a bill for its total repeal. The difficult
task of advocating this measure devolved upon Mr. Calhoun, who sustained
his cause more ingeniously than ingenuously. He frankly admitted that
restriction was a failure as a war measure, but he defended the repeal on
the ground that the condition of affairs in Europe had changed since the
restrictive policy was adopted. It had indeed changed since the embargo of
1807, but not since the imposition of that of 1813, which was the one under
discussion.
Mr. Calhoun laid himself open to most unmerciful retorts, which was his
misfortune, not his fault, for the embargo had been utterly and hopelessly
wrong from the beginning. Mr. Webster, however, took full advantage of the
opportunity thus presented. His opening congratulations are in his best
vein of stately sarcasm, and are admirably put. He followed this up by a
new argument of great force, showing the colonial spirit of the restrictive
policy. He also dwelt with fresh vigor on the identification with France
necessitated by the restrictive laws, a reproach which stung Mr. Calhoun
and his followers more than anything else. He then took up the embargo
policy and tore it to pieces,--no very difficult undertaking, but well
performed. The shifty and shifting policy of the government was especially
distasteful to Mr. Webster, with his lofty conception of consistent and
steady statesmanship, a point which is well brought out in the following
passage:--
"In a commercial country, nothing can be more objectionable than
frequent and violent changes. The concerns of private business do
not endure such rude shocks but with extreme inconvenience and
great loss. It would seem, however, that there is a class of
politicians to whose taste all change is suited, to whom whatever
is unnatural seems wise, and all that is violent appears great....
The Embargo Act, the Non-Importation Act, and all the crowd of
additions and supplements, together with all their garniture of
messages, reports, and resolutions, are tumbling undistinguished
into one common grave. But yesterday this policy had a thousand
friends and supporters; to-day it is fallen and prostrate, and few
'so poor as to do it reverence.' Sir, a government which cannot
administer the affairs of a nation without so frequent and such
violent alterations in the ordinary occupations and pursuits of
private life, has, in my opinion, little claim to the regard of the
community."
All this is very characteristic of Mr. Webster's temperament in dealing
with public affairs, and is a very good example of his power of dignified
reproach and condemnation.
Mr. Calhoun had said at the close of his speech, that the repeal of the
restrictive measures should not be allowed to affect the double duties
which protected manufactures. Mr. Webster discussed this point at length,
defining his own position, which was that of the New England Federalists,
who believed in free trade as an abstract principle, and considered
protection only as an expedient of which they wanted as little as possible.
Mr. Webster set forth these views in his usual effective and lucid manner,
but they can be considered more fitly at the period when he dealt with the
tariff as a leading issue of the day and of his own public life.
Mr. Webster took no further action of importance at this session, not even
participating in the great debate on the loan bill; but, by the manner in
which these two speeches were referred to and quoted in Congress for many
days after they were delivered, we can perceive the depth of their first
impression. I have dwelt upon them at length because they are not in the
collected edition of his speeches, where they well deserve a place, and,
still more, because they are the first examples of his parliamentary
eloquence which show his characteristic qualities and the action of his
mind. Mr. Webster was a man of slow growth, not reaching his highest point
until he was nearly fifty years of age, but these two speeches mark an
advanced stage in his progress. The only fresh point that he made was when
he declared that the embargo was colonial in spirit; and this thought
proceeded from the vital principle of Mr. Webster's public life, his
intense love for nationality and union, which grew with his growth and
strengthened with his strength. In other respects, these speeches presented
simply the arguments and opinions of his party. They fell upon the ear of
Congress and the country with a new and ringing sound because they were
stated so finely and with such simplicity. Certainly one of them, and
probably both, were delivered without any immediate preparation, but they
really had the preparation of years, and were the utterance of thoughts
which had been garnered up by long meditation. He wisely confined himself
at this time to a subject which had been long before his mind, and upon
which he had gathered all the essential points by observation and by a
study of the multitude of speeches and essays with which the country had
been deluged. These early speeches, like some of the best of his prime,
although nominally unprepared, were poured forth from the overflowing
resources which had been the fruit of months of reflection, and which had
been stored up by an unyielding memory. They had really been in preparation
ever since the embargo pamphlet of 1808, and that was one reason for their
ripeness and terseness, for their easy flow and condensed force. I have
examined with care the debates in that Congress. There were many able and
experienced speakers on the floor. Mr. Clay, it is true, took no part, and
early in the session went to Europe. But Mr. Calhoun led in debate, and
there were many others second only to him. Among all the speeches, however,
Mr. Webster's stand out in sharp relief. His utterances were as clear and
direct as those of Mr. Calhoun, but they had none of the South Carolinian's
dryness. We can best judge of their merit and their effect by comparing
them with those of his associates. They were not only forcible, but they
were vivid also and full of life, and his words when he was roused fell
like the blows of a hammer on an anvil. They lacked the polish and richness
of his later efforts, but the force and power of statement and the purity
of diction were all there, and men began to realize that one destined to
great achievements had entered the field of American politics.
This was very apparent when Mr. Webster came back to Washington for the
extra session called in September, 1814. Although he had made previously
but two set speeches, and had taken comparatively little part in every-day
debate, he was now acknowledged, after his few months of service, to be one
of the foremost men in the House, and the strongest leader in his party. He
differed somewhat at this time from the prevailing sentiment of the
Federalists in New England, for the guiding principle of his life, his love
of nationality, overrode all other influences. He discountenanced the
measures which led to the Hartford Convention, and he helped to keep New
Hampshire out of that movement; but it is an entire mistake to represent
him as an independent Federalist at this period. The days of Mr. Webster's
independent politics came later, when the Federalists had ceased to exist
as a party and when no new ties had been formed. In the winter of 1814 and
1815, although, like many of the moderate Federalists, he disapproved of
the separatist movement in New England, on all other party questions he
acted consistently with the straitest of the sect. Sensibly enough, he did
not consider the convention at Hartford, although he had nothing to do with
it, either treasonable or seditious; and yet, much as he disliked its
supposed purposes, he did not hesitate, in a speech on the Enlistment Bill,
to use them as a threat to deter the administration from war measures. This
was a favorite Federalist practice, gloomily to point out at this time the
gathering clouds of domestic strife, in order to turn the administration
back from war, that poor frightened administration of Mr. Madison, which
had for months been clutching frantically at every straw which seemed to
promise a chance of peace.
But although Mr. Webster went as steadily and even more strongly with his
party in this session, he did more and better service than ever before,
partly, perhaps, because on the questions which arose, his party was, in
the main, entirely right. The strength of his party feeling is shown by his
attitude in regard to the war taxes, upon which he made a quiet but
effective speech. He took the ground that, as a member of the minority, he
could not prevent the taxes nor stop hostilities, but he could protest
against the war, its conduct, and its authors, by voting against the taxes.
There is a nice question of political ethics here as to how far an
opposition ought to go in time of national war and distress, but it is
certainly impossible to give a more extreme expression to parliamentary
opposition than to refuse the supplies at a most critical moment in a
severe conflict. To this last extreme of party opposition to the
administration, Mr. Webster went. It was as far as he could go and remain
loyal to the Union. But there he stopped absolutely. With the next step,
which went outside the Union, and which his friends at home were
considering, he would have nothing to do, and he would not countenance any
separatist schemes. In the national Congress, however, he was prepared to
advance as far as the boldest and bitterest in opposition, and he either
voted against the war taxes or abstained from voting on them, in company
with the strictest partisans of the Pickering type.
There is no need to suppose from this that Mr. Webster had lost in the
least the liberality or breadth of view which always characterized him. He
was no narrower then than when he entered Congress, or than when he left
it. He went with his party because he believed it to be right,--as at that
moment it undoubtedly was. The party, however, was still extreme and
bitter, as it had been for ten years, but Mr. Webster was neither. He went
all lengths with his friends in Congress, but he did not share their
intensity of feeling or their fierce hostility to individuals. The
Federalists, for instance, as a rule had ceased to call upon Mr. Madison,
but in such intolerance Mr. Webster declined to indulge. He was always on
good terms with the President and with all the hostile leaders. His
opposition was extreme in principle, but not in manner; it was vigorous and
uncompromising, but also stately and dignified. It was part of his large
and indolent nature to accept much and question little; to take the ideas
most easy and natural to him, those of his friends and associates, and of
his native New England, without needless inquiry and investigation. It was
part of the same nature, also, to hold liberal views after he had fairly
taken sides, and never, by confounding individuals with principles and
purposes, to import into politics the fiery, biting element of personal
hatred and malice.
His position in the House once assured, we find Mr. Webster taking a much
more active part in the daily debates than before. On these occasions we
hear of his "deliberate, conversational" manner, another of the lessons
learned from Mr. Mason when that gentleman, standing so close to the
jury-box that he could have "laid his finger on the foreman's nose," as Mr.
Webster said, chatted easily with each juryman, and won a succession of
verdicts. But besides the daily debate, Mr. Webster spoke at length on
several important occasions. This was the case with the Enlistment Bill,
which involved a forced draft, including minors, and was deemed
unconstitutional by the Federalists. Mr. Webster had "a hand," as he puts
it,--a strong one, we may be sure,--in killing "Mr. Monroe's conscription."
The most important measure, however, with which Mr. Webster was called to
deal, and to which he gave his best efforts, was the attempt to establish a
national bank. There were three parties in the House on this question. The
first represented the "old Republican" doctrines, and was opposed to any
bank. The second represented the theories of Hamilton and the Federalists,
and favored a bank with a reasonable capital, specie-paying, and free to
decide about making loans to the government. The third body was composed of
members of the national war-party, who were eager for a bank merely to help
the government out of its appalling difficulties. They, therefore, favored
an institution of large capital, non-specie-paying, and obliged to make
heavy loans to the government, which involved, of course, an irredeemable
paper currency. In a word, there was the party of no bank, the party of a
specie bank, and the party of a huge paper-money bank. The second of these
parties, with which of course Mr. Webster acted, held the key of the
situation. No bank could be established unless it was based on their
principles. The first bill, proposing a paper-money bank, originated in the
House, and was killed there by a strong majority, Mr. Webster making a long
speech against it which has not been preserved. The next bill came from the
Senate, and was also for a paper-money bank. Against this scheme Mr.
Webster made a second elaborate speech, which is reprinted in his works.
His genius for arranging and stating facts held its full strength in
questions of finance, and he now established his reputation as a master in
that difficult department of statesmanship. His recent studies of
economical questions in late English works and in English history gave
freshness to what he said, and in clearness of argument, in range of view,
and wisdom of judgment, he showed himself a worthy disciple of the school
of Hamilton. His argument proceeded on the truest economical and commercial
principles, and was, indeed, unanswerable. He then took his stand as the
foe of irredeemable paper, whether in war or peace, and of wild,
unrestrained banking, a position from which he never wavered, and in
support of which he rendered to the country some of his best service as a
public man. The bill was defeated by the casting vote of the Speaker. When
the result was announced, Mr. Calhoun was utterly overwhelmed. He cared
little for the bank but deeply for the government, which, as it was not
known that peace had been made, seemed to be on the verge of ruin. He came
over to Mr. Webster, and, bursting into tears, begged the latter to aid in
establishing a proper bank, a request which was freely granted.
The vote was then reconsidered, the bill recommitted and brought back, with
a reduced capital, and freed from the government power to force loans and
suspend specie payments. This measure was passed by a large majority,
composed of the Federalists and the friends of the government, but it was
the plan of the former which had prevailed. The President vetoed the bill
for a variety of reasons, duly stated, but really, as Mr. Webster said,
because a sound bank of this sort was not in favor with the administration.
Another paper-money scheme was introduced, and the conflict began again,
but was abruptly terminated by the news of peace, and on March 4 the
thirteenth Congress came to an end.
The fourteenth Congress, to which he had been reëlected, Mr. Webster said
many years afterward, was the most remarkable for talents of any he had
ever seen. To the leaders of marked ability in the previous Congress, most
of whom had been reëlected, several others were added. Mr. Clay returned
from Europe to take again an active part. Mr. Pinkney, the most eminent
practising lawyer in the country, recently Attorney-General and Minister to
England, whom John Randolph, with characteristic insolence, "believed to be
from Maryland," was there until his appointment to the Russian mission.
Last, but not least, there was John Randolph himself, wildly eccentric and
venomously eloquent,--sometimes witty, always odd and amusing, talking
incessantly on everything, so that the reporters gave him up in despair,
and with whom Mr. Webster came to a definite understanding before the close
of the session.
Mr. Webster did not take his seat until February, being detained at the
North by the illness of his daughter Grace. When he arrived he found
Congress at work upon a bank bill possessing the same objectionable
features of paper money and large capital as the former schemes which he
had helped to overthrow. He began his attack upon this dangerous plan by
considering the evil condition of the currency. He showed that the currency
of the United States was sound because it was gold and silver, in his
opinion the only constitutional medium, but that the country was flooded by
the irredeemable paper of the state banks. Congress could not regulate the
state banks, but they could force them to specie payments by refusing to
receive any notes which were not paid in specie by the bank which issued
them. Passing to the proposed national bank, he reiterated the able
arguments which he had made in the previous Congress against the large
capital, the power to suspend specie payments, and the stock feature of the
bank, which he thought would lead to speculation and control by the state
banks. This last point is the first instance of that financial foresight
for which Mr. Webster was so remarkable, and which shows so plainly the
soundness of his knowledge in regard to economical matters. A violent
speculation in bank stock did ensue, and the first years of the new
institution were troubled, disorderly, and anything but creditable. The
opposition of Mr. Webster and those who thought with him, resulted in the
reduction of the capital and the removal of the power to suspend specie
payments. But although shorn of its most obnoxious features, Mr. Webster
voted against the bill on its final passage on account of the participation
permitted to the government in its management. He was quite right, but,
after the bank was well established, he supported it as Lord Thurlow
promised to do in regard to the dissenter's religion. Indeed, Mr. Webster
ultimately so far lost his original dislike to this bank that he became one
of its warmest adherents. The plan was defective, but the scheme, on the
whole, worked better than had been expected.
Immediately after the passage of the bank bill, Mr. Calhoun introduced a
bill requiring the revenue to be collected in lawful money of the United
States. A sharp debate ensued, and the bill was lost. Mr. Webster at once
offered resolutions requiring all government dues to be paid in coin, in
Treasury notes, or in notes of the Bank of the United States. He supported
these resolutions, thus daringly put forward just after the principle they
involved had been voted down, in a speech of singular power, clear,
convincing, and full of information and illustration. He elaborated the
ideas contained in his previous remarks on the currency, displaying with
great force the evils of irredeemable paper, and the absolute necessity of
a sound currency based on specie payments. He won a signal victory by the
passage of his resolutions, which brought about resumption, and, after the
bank was firmly established, gave us a sound currency and a safe medium of
exchange. This was one of the most conspicuous services ever rendered by
Mr. Webster to the business interests and good government of the country,
and he deserves the full credit, for he triumphed where Mr. Calhoun had
just been defeated.
Mr. Webster took more or less part in all the questions which afterwards
arose in the House, especially on the tariff, but his great efforts were
those devoted to the bank and the currency. The only other incident of the
session was an invitation to fight a duel sent him by John Randolph. This
was the only challenge ever received by Mr. Webster. He never could have
seemed a very happy subject for such missives, and, moreover, he never
indulged in language calculated to provoke them. Randolph, however, would
have challenged anybody or anything, from Henry Clay to a field-mouse, if
the fancy happened to strike him. Mr. Webster's reply is a model of dignity
and veiled contempt. He refused to admit Randolph's right to an
explanation, alluded to that gentleman's lack of courtesy in the House,
denied his right to call him out, and wound up by saying that he did not
feel bound to risk his life at any one's bidding, but should "always be
prepared to repel, in a suitable manner, the aggression of any man who may
presume on this refusal." One cannot help smiling over this last clause,
with its suggestion of personal violence, as the two men rise before the
fancy,--the big, swarthy black-haired son of the northern hills, with his
robust common sense, and the sallow, lean, sickly Virginia planter, not
many degrees removed mentally from the patients in Bedlam.
In the affairs of the next session of the fourteenth Congress Mr. Webster
took scarcely any part. He voted for Mr. Calhoun's internal improvement
bill, although without entering the debate, and he also voted to pass the
bill over Mr. Madison's veto. This was sound Hamiltonian Federalism, and in
entire consonance with the national sentiments of Mr. Webster. On the
constitutional point, which he is said to have examined with some care, he
decided in accordance with the opinions of his party, and with the doctrine
of liberal construction, to which he always adhered.
On March 4, 1817, the fourteenth Congress expired, and with it the term of
Mr. Webster's service. Five years were to intervene before he again
appeared in the arena of national politics. This retirement from active
public life was due to professional reasons. In nine years Mr. Webster had
attained to the very summit of his profession in New Hampshire. He was
earning two thousand dollars a year, and in that hardy and poor community
he could not hope to earn more. To a man with such great and productive
talents, and with a growing family, a larger field had become an absolute
necessity. In June, 1816, therefore, Mr. Webster removed from Portsmouth to
Boston. That he gained by the change is apparent from the fact that the
first year after his removal his professional income did not fall short of
twenty thousand dollars. The first suggestion of the possibilities of
wealth offered to his abilities in a suitable field came from his going to
Washington. There, in the winter of 1813 and 1814, he was admitted to the
bar of the Supreme Court of the United States, before which he tried two or
three cases, and this opened the vista of a professional career, which he
felt would give him verge and room enough, as well as fit remuneration.
From this beginning the Supreme Court practice, which soon led to the
removal to Boston, rapidly increased, until, in the last session of his
term, it occupied most of his time. This withdrawal from the duties of
Congress, however, was not due to a sacrifice of his time to his
professional engagements, but to the depression caused by his first great
grief, which must have rendered the noise and dust of debate most
distasteful to him. Mr. and Mrs. Webster had arrived in Washington for this
last session, in December, 1816, and were recalled to Boston by the illness
of their little daughter Grace, who was their oldest child, singularly
bright and precocious, with much of her father's look and talent, and of
her mother's sensibility. She was a favorite with her father, and tenderly
beloved by him. After her parents' return she sank rapidly, the victim of
consumption. When the last hour was at hand, the child, rousing from sleep,
asked for her father. He came, raised her upon his arm, and, as he did so,
she smiled upon him and died. It is a little incident in the life of a
great man, but a child's instinct does not err at such a moment, and her
dying smile sheds a flood of soft light upon the deep and warm affections
of Mr. Webster's solemn and reserved nature. It was the first great grief.
Mr. Webster wept convulsively as he stood beside the dead, and those who
saw that stately creature so wrung by anguish of the heart never forgot the
sight.
Thus the period which began at Portsmouth in 1807 closed in Boston, in
1817, with the death of the eldest born. In that decade Mr. Webster had
advanced with great strides from the position of a raw and youthful lawyer
in a back country town of New Hampshire. He had reached the highest
professional eminence in his own State, and had removed to a wider sphere,
where he at once took rank with the best lawyers. He was a leading
practitioner in the highest national court. During his two terms in
Congress he had become a leader of his party, and had won a solid national
reputation. In those years he had rendered conspicuous service to the
business interests of the nation, and had established himself as one of the
ablest statesmen of the country in matters of finance. He had defined his
position on the tariff as a free-trader in theory and a very moderate
protectionist when protection was unavoidable, a true representative of the
doctrine of the New England Federalists. He had taken up his ground as the
champion of specie payments and of the liberal interpretation of the
Constitution, which authorized internal improvements. While he had not
shrunk from extreme opposition to the administration during the war, he had
kept himself entirely clear from the separatist sentiment of New England in
the year 1814. He left Congress with a realizing sense of his own growing
powers, and, rejoicing in his strength, he turned to his profession and to
his new duties in his new home.