THE TARIFF OF 1828 AND THE REPLY TO HAYNE.
The new dignity conferred on Mr. Webster by the people of Massachusetts had
hardly been assumed when he was called upon to encounter a trial which must
have made all his honors seem poor indeed. He had scarcely taken his seat
when he was obliged to return to New York, where failing health had
arrested Mrs. Webster's journey to the capital, and where, after much
suffering, she died, January 21, 1828. The blow fell with terrible severity
upon her husband. He had many sorrows to bear during his life, but this
surpassed all others. His wife was the love of his youth, the mother of his
children, a lovely woman whose strong but gentle influence for good was now
lost to him irreparably. In his last days his thoughts reverted to her, and
as he followed her body to the grave, on foot in the wet and cold, and
leading his children by the hand, it must indeed have seemed as if the wine
of life had been drunk and only the lees remained. He was excessively pale,
and to those who looked upon him seemed crushed and heart-broken.
The only relief was to return to his work and to the excitement of public
affairs; but the cloud hung over him long after he was once more in his
place in the Senate. Death had made a wound in his life which time healed
but of which the scar remained. Whatever were Mr. Webster's faults, his
affection for those nearest to him, and especially for the wife of his
youth, was deep and strong.
"The very first day of Mr. Webster's arrival and taking his seat in
the Senate," Judge Story writes to Mr. Ticknor, "there was a
process bill on its third reading, filled, as he thought, with
inconvenient and mischievous provisions. He made, in a modest
undertone, some inquiries, and, upon an answer being given, he
expressed in a few words his doubts and fears. Immediately Mr.
Tazewell from Virginia broke out upon him in a speech of two hours.
Mr. Webster then moved an adjournment, and on the next day
delivered a most masterly speech in reply, expounding the whole
operation of the intended act in the clearest manner, so that a
recommitment was carried almost without an effort. It was a triumph
of the most gratifying nature, and taught his opponents the danger
of provoking a trial of his strength, even when he was overwhelmed
by calamity. In the labors of the court he has found it difficult
to work himself up to high efforts; but occasionally he comes out
with all his powers, and when he does, it is sure to attract a
brilliant audience."
It would be impossible to give a better picture than that presented by
Judge Story of Mr. Webster's appearance and conduct in the month
immediately following the death of his wife. We can see how his talents,
excited by the conflicts of the Senate and the court, struggled, sometimes
successfully, sometimes in vain, with the sense of loss and sorrow which
oppressed him.
He did not again come prominently forward in the Senate until the end of
April, when he roused himself to prevent injustice. The bill for the relief
of the surviving officers of the Revolution seemed on the point of being
lost. The object of the measure appealed to Mr. Webster's love for the
past, to his imagination, and his patriotism. He entered into the debate,
delivered the fine and dignified speech which is preserved in his works,
and saved the bill.
A fortnight after this he made his famous speech on the tariff of 1828, a
bill making extensive changes in the rates of duties imposed in 1816 and
1824. This speech marks an important change in Mr. Webster's views and in
his course as a statesman. He now gave up his position as the ablest
opponent in the country of the protective policy, and went over to the
support of the tariff and the "American system" of Mr. Clay. This change,
in every way of great importance, subjected Mr. Webster to severe criticism
both then and subsequently. It is, therefore, necessary to examine briefly
his previous utterances on this question in order to reach a correct
understanding of his motives in taking this important step and to
appreciate his reasons for the adoption of a policy with which, after the
year 1828, he was so closely identified.
When Mr. Webster first entered Congress he was a thorough-going Federalist.
But the Federalists of New England differed from their great chief,
Alexander Hamilton, on the question of a protective policy. Hamilton, in
his report on manufactures, advocated with consummate ability the adoption
of the principle of protection for nascent industries as an integral and
essential part of a true national policy, and urged it on its own merits,
without any reference to its being incident to revenue. The New England
Federalists, on the other hand, coming from exclusively commercial
communities, were in principle free-traders. They regarded with disfavor
the doctrine that protection was a good thing in itself, and desired it, if
at all, only in the most limited form and purely as an incident to raising
revenue. With these opinions Mr. Webster was in full sympathy, and he took
occasion when Mr. Calhoun, in 1814, spoke in favor of the existing double
duties as a protective measure, and also in favor of manufactures, during
the debate on the repeal of the embargo, to define his position on this
important question. A few brief extracts will show his views, which were
expressed very clearly and with his wonted ability and force.
"I consider," he said, "the imposition of double duties as a mere
financial measure. Its great object was to raise revenue, not to
foster manufactures.... I do not say the double duties ought to be
continued. I think they ought not. But what I particularly object
to is the holding out of delusive expectations to those concerned
in manufactures.... In respect to manufactures it is necessary to
speak with some precision. I am not, generally speaking, their
enemy. I am their friend; but I am not for rearing them or any
other interest in hot-beds. I would not legislate precipitately,
even in favor of them; above all, I would not profess intentions in
relation to them which I did not purpose to execute. I feel no
desire to push capital into extensive manufactures faster than the
general progress of our wealth and population propels it.
"I am not in haste to see Sheffields and Birminghams in America.
Until the population of the country shall be greater in proportion
to its extent, such establishments would be impracticable if
attempted, and if practicable they would be unwise."
He then pointed out the inferiority and the perils of manufactures as an
occupation in comparison with agriculture, and concluded as follows:--
"I am not anxious to accelerate the approach of the period when the
great mass of American labor shall not find its employment in the
field; when the young men of the country shall be obliged to shut
their eyes upon external nature, upon the heavens and the earth,
and immerse themselves in close and unwholesome workshops; when
they shall be obliged to shut their ears to the bleatings of their
own flocks upon their own hills, and to the voice of the lark that
cheers them at the plough, that they may open them in dust and
smoke and steam to the perpetual whirl of spools and spindles, and
the grating of rasps and saws. I have made these remarks, sir, not
because I perceive any immediate danger of carrying our
manufactures to an extensive height, but for the purpose of
guarding and limiting my opinions, and of checking, perhaps, a
little the high-wrought hopes of some who seem to look to our
present infant establishments for 'more than their nature or their
state can bear.'
"_It is the true policy of government to suffer the different
pursuits of society to take their own course, and not to give
excessive bounties or encouragements to one over another. This,
also, is the true spirit of the Constitution. It has not, in my
opinion, conferred on the government the power of changing the
occupations of the people of different States and sections, and of
forcing them into other employments._ It cannot prohibit commerce
any more than agriculture, nor manufactures any more than commerce.
It owes protection to all."
The sentences in italics constitute a pretty strong and explicit statement
of the _laissez faire_ doctrine, and it will be observed that the tone of
all the extracts is favorable to free trade and hostile to protection and
even to manufactures in a marked degree. We see, also, that Mr. Webster,
with his usual penetration and justice of perception, saw very clearly that
uniformity and steadiness of policy were more essential than even the
policy itself, and in his opinion were most likely to be attained by
refraining from protection as much as possible.
When the tariff of 1816 was under discussion Mr. Webster made no elaborate
speech against it, probably feeling that it was hopeless to attempt to
defeat the measure as a whole, but he devoted himself with almost complete
success to the task of reducing the proposed duties and to securing
modifications of various portions of the bill.
In 1820, when the tariff recommended at the previous session was about to
come before Congress, Mr. Webster was not in public life. He attended,
however, a meeting of merchants and agriculturists, held in Faneuil Hall in
the summer of that year, to protest against the proposed tariff, and he
spoke strongly in favor of the free trade resolutions which were then
adopted. He began by saying that he was a friend to manufactures, but not
to the tariff, which he considered as most injurious to the country.
"He certainly thought it might be doubted whether Congress would
not be acting somewhat against the spirit and intention of the
Constitution in exercising a power to control essentially the
pursuits and occupations of individuals in their private
concerns--a power to force great and sudden changes both of
occupation and property upon individuals, _not as incidental to the
exercise of any other power, but as a substantial and direct
power_."
It will be observed that he objects to the constitutionality of protection
as a "direct power," and in the speech of 1814, in the portion quoted in
italics, he declared against any general power still more forcibly and
broadly. It is an impossible piece of subtlety and refining, therefore, to
argue that Mr. Webster always held consistently to his views as to the
limitations of the revenue power as a source of protection, and that he put
protection in 1828, and subsequently sustained it after his change of
position, on new and general constitutional grounds. In the speeches of
1814 and 1820 he declared expressly against the doctrine of a general power
of protection, saying, in the latter instance:--
"It would hardly be contended that Congress possessed that sort of
general power by which it might declare that particular occupations
should be pursued in society and that others should not. _If such
power belonged to any government in this country, it certainly did
not belong to the general government._"
Mr. Webster took the New England position that there was no general power,
and having so declared in this speech of 1820, he then went on to show that
protection could only come as incidental to revenue, and that, even in this
way, it became unconstitutional when the incident was turned into the
principle and when protection and not revenue was the object of the duties.
After arguing this point, he proceeded to discuss the general expediency
of protection, holding it up as a thoroughly mistaken policy, a failure in
England which that country would gladly be rid of, and defending commerce
as the truest and best support of the government and of general prosperity.
He took up next the immediate effects of the proposed tariff, and,
premising that it would confessedly cause a diminution of the revenue,
said:--
"In truth, every man in the community not immediately benefited by
the new duties would suffer a double loss. In the first place, by
shutting out the former commodity, the price of the domestic
manufacture would be raised. The consumer, therefore, must pay more
for it, and insomuch as government will have lost the duty on the
imported article, a tax equal to that duty must be paid to the
government. The real amount, then, of this bounty on a given
article will be precisely the amount of the present duty added to
the amount of the proposed duty."
He then went on to show the injustice which would be done to all
manufacturers of unprotected articles, and ridiculed the idea of the
connection between home industries artificially developed and national
independence. He concluded by assailing manufacturing as an occupation,
attacking it as a means of making the rich richer and the poor poorer; of
injuring business by concentrating capital in the hands of a few who
obtained control of the corporations; of distributing capital less widely
than commerce; of breeding up a dangerous and undesirable population; and
of leading to the hurtful employment of women and children. The meeting,
the resolutions, and the speech were all in the interests of commerce and
free trade, and Mr. Webster's doctrines were on the most approved pattern
of New England Federalism, which, professing a mild friendship for
manufactures and unwillingly conceding the minimum of protection solely as
an incident to revenue, was, at bottom, thoroughly hostile to both. In 1820
Mr. Webster stood forth, both politically and constitutionally, as a
free-trader, moderate but at the same time decided in his opinions.
When the tariff of 1824 was brought before Congress and advocated with
great zeal by Mr. Clay, who upheld it as the "American system," Mr. Webster
opposed the policy in the fullest and most elaborate speech he had yet made
on the subject. A distinguished American economist, Mr. Edward Atkinson,
has described this speech of 1824 briefly and exactly in the following
words:--
"It contains a refutation of the exploded theory of the balance of
trade, of the fallacy with regard to the exportation of specie, and
of the claim that the policy of protection is distinctively the
American policy which can never be improved upon, and it indicates
how thoroughly his judgment approved and his better nature
sympathized with the movement towards enlightened and liberal
commercial legislation, then already commenced in Great Britain."
This speech was in truth one of great ability, showing a remarkable
capacity for questions of political economy, and opening with an admirable
discussion of the currency and of finance, in regard to which Mr. Webster
always held and advanced the soundest, most scientific, and most
enlightened views. Now, as in 1820, he stood forth as the especial champion
of commerce, which, as he said, had thriven without protection, had brought
revenue to the government and wealth to the country, and would be
grievously injured by the proposed tariff. He made his principal objection
to the protection policy on the ground of favoritism to some interests at
the expense of others when all were entitled to equal consideration. Of
England he said, "Because a thing has been wrongly done, it does not follow
that it can be undone; and this is the reason, as I understand it, for
which exclusion, prohibition, and monopoly are suffered to remain in any
degree in the English system." After examining at length the different
varieties of protection, and displaying very thoroughly the state of
current English opinion, he defined the position which he, in common with
the Federalists of New England, then as always adhered to in the following
words:--
"Protection, when carried to the point which is now recommended,
that is, to entire prohibition, seems to me destructive of all
commercial intercourse between nations. We are urged to adopt the
system on general principles; ... I do not admit the general
principle; on the contrary, I think freedom of trade the general
principle, and restriction the exception."
He pointed out that the proposed protective policy involved a decline of
commerce, and that steadiness and uniformity, the most essential requisites
in any policy, were endangered. He then with great power dealt with the
various points summarized by Mr. Atkinson, and concluded with a detailed
and learned examination of the various clauses of the bill, which finally
passed by a small majority and became law.
In 1828 came another tariff bill, so bad and so extreme in many respects
that it was called the "bill of abominations." It originated in the
agitation of the woollen manufacturers which had started the year before,
and for this bill Mr. Webster spoke and voted. He changed his ground on
this important question absolutely and entirely, and made no pretence of
doing anything else. The speech which he made on this occasion is a
celebrated one, but it is so solely on account of the startling change of
position which it announced. Mr. Webster has been attacked and defended for
his action at this time with great zeal, and all the constitutional and
economic arguments for and against protection are continually brought
forward in this connection. From the tone of the discussion, it is to be
feared that many of those who are interested in the question have not
taken the trouble to read what he said. The speech of 1828 is by no means
equal in any way to its predecessors in the same field. It is brief and
simple to the last degree. It has not a shred of constitutional argument,
nor does it enter at all into a discussion of general principles. It makes
but one point, and treats that point with great force as the only one to be
made under the circumstances, and thereby presents the single and
sufficient reason for its author's vote. A few lines from the speech give
the marrow of the whole matter. Mr. Webster said:--
"New England, sir, has not been a leader in this policy. On the
contrary, she held back herself and tried to hold others back from
it, from the adoption of the Constitution to 1824. Up to 1824 she
was accused of sinister and selfish designs, _because she
discountenanced the progress of this policy_.... Under this angry
denunciation against her the act of 1824 passed. Now the imputation
is of a precisely opposite character.... Both charges, sir, are
equally without the slightest foundation. The opinion of New
England up to 1824 was founded in the conviction that, on the
whole, it was wisest and best, both for herself and others, that
manufactures should make haste slowly.... When, at the commencement
of the late war, duties were doubled, we were told that we should
find a mitigation of the weight of taxation in the new aid and
succor which would be thus afforded to our own manufacturing labor.
Like arguments were urged, and prevailed, but not by the aid of New
England votes, when the tariff was afterwards arranged at the
close of the war in 1816. Finally, after a winter's deliberation,
the act of 1824 received the sanction of both Houses of Congress
and settled the policy of the country. What, then, was New England
to do?... Was she to hold out forever against the course of the
government, and see herself losing on one side and yet make no
effort to sustain herself on the other? No, sir. Nothing was left
to New England but to conform herself to the will of others.
Nothing was left to her but to consider that the government had
fixed and determined its own policy; and that policy was
_protection_.... I believe, sir, almost every man from New England
who voted against the law of 1824 declared that if, notwithstanding
his opposition to that law, it should still pass, there would be no
alternative but to consider the course and policy of the government
as then settled and fixed, and to act accordingly. The law did
pass; and a vast increase of investment in manufacturing
establishments was the consequence."
Opinion in New England changed for good and sufficient business reasons,
and Mr. Webster changed with it. Free trade had commended itself to him as
an abstract principle, and he had sustained and defended it as in the
interest of commercial New England. But when the weight of interest in New
England shifted from free trade to protection Mr. Webster followed it. His
constituents were by no means unanimous in support of the tariff in 1828,
but the majority favored it, and Mr. Webster went with the majority. At a
public dinner given to him in Boston at the close of the session, he
explained to the dissentient minority the reasons for his vote, which were
very simple. He thought that good predominated over evil in the bill, and
that the majority throughout the whole State of which he was the
representative favored the tariff, and therefore he had voted in the
affirmative.
Much fault has been found, as has been said, both at the time and since,
with Mr. Webster's change of position on this question. It has been held up
as a monument of inconsistency, and as indicating a total absence of deep
conviction. That Mr. Webster was, in a certain sense, inconsistent is
beyond doubt, but consistency is the bugbear of small minds, as well as a
mark of strong characters, while its reverse is often the proof of wisdom.
On the other hand, it may be fairly argued that, holding as he did that the
whole thing was purely a business question to be decided according to
circumstances, his course, in view of the policy adopted by the government,
was at bottom perfectly consistent. As to the want of deep conviction, Mr.
Webster's vote on this question proves nothing. He believed in free trade
as an abstract general principle, and there is no reason to suppose that he
ever abandoned his belief on this point. But he had too clear a mind ever
to be run away with by the extreme vagaries of the Manchester school. He
knew that there was no morality, no immutable right and wrong, in an
impost or a free list. It has been the fashion to refer to Mr. Disraeli's
declaration that free trade was "a mere question of expediency" as a proof
of that gentleman's cynical indifference to moral principles. That the late
Earl of Beaconsfield had no deep convictions on any subject may be readily
admitted, but in this instance he uttered a very plain and simple truth,
which all the talk in the world about free trade as the harbinger and
foundation of universal peace on earth, cannot disguise.
Mr. Webster never at any time treated the question of free trade or
protection as anything but one of expediency. Under the lead of Mr.
Calhoun, in 1816, the South and West initiated a protective policy, and
after twelve years it had become firmly established and New England had
adapted herself to it. Mr. Webster, as a New England representative,
resisted the protective policy at the outset as against her interests, but
when she had conformed to the new conditions, he came over to its support
simply on the ground of expediency. He rested the defence of his new
position upon the doctrine which he had always consistently preached, that
uniformity and permanency were the essential and sound conditions of any
policy, whether of free trade or protection. In 1828, neither at the dinner
in Boston nor in the Senate, did he enter into any discussion of general
principles or constitutional theories. He merely said, in substance, You
have chosen to make protection necessary to New England, and therefore I am
now forced to vote for it. This was the position which he continued to hold
to the end of his life. As he was called upon, year after year, to defend
protection, and as New England became more and more wedded to the tariff,
he elaborated his arguments on many points, but the essence of all he said
afterwards is to be found in the speech of 1828. On the constitutional
point he was obliged to make a more violent change. He held, of course, to
his opinion that, under the revenue power, protection could be incidental
only, because from that doctrine there was no escape. But he dropped the
condemnation expressed in 1814 and the doubts uttered in 1820 as to the
theory that it was within the direct power of Congress to enact a
protective tariff, and assumed that they had this right as one of the
general powers in the Constitution, or that at all events they had
exercised it, and that therefore the question was henceforward to be
considered as _res adjudicata_. The speech of 1828 marks the separation of
Mr. Webster from the opinions of the old school of New England Federalism.
Thereafter he stood forth as the champion of the tariff and of the
"American system" of Henry Clay. Regarding protection in its true light, as
a mere question of expediency, he followed the interests of New England
and of the great industrial communities of the North. That he shifted his
ground at the proper moment, bad as the "bill of abominations" was, and
that, as a Northern statesman, he was perfectly justified in doing so,
cannot be fairly questioned or criticised. It is true that his course was a
sectional one, but everybody else's on this question was the same, and it
could not be, it never has been, and never will be otherwise.
The tariff of 1828 was destined indirectly to have far more important
results to Mr. Webster than the brief speech in which he signalized his
change of position on the question of protection. Soon after the passage of
the act, in May, 1828, the South Carolina delegation held a meeting to take
steps to resist the operation of the tariff, but nothing definite was then
accomplished. Popular meetings in South Carolina, characterized by much
violent talk, followed, however, during the summer, and in the autumn the
Legislature of the State put forth the famous "exposition and protest"
which emanated from Mr. Calhoun, and embodied in the fullest and strongest
terms the principles of "nullification." These movements were viewed with
regret and with some alarm throughout the country, but they were rather
lost sight of in the intense excitement of the presidential election. The
accession of Jackson then came to absorb the public attention, and brought
with it the sweeping removals from office which Mr. Webster strongly
denounced. At the same time he was not led into the partisan absurdity of
denying the President's power of removal, and held to the impregnable
position of steady resistance to the evils of patronage, which could be
cured only by the operation of an enlightened public sentiment. It is
obvious now that, in the midst of all this agitation about other matters,
Mr. Calhoun and the South Carolinians never lost sight of the conflict for
which they were preparing, and that they were on the alert to bring
nullification to the front in a more menacing and pronounced fashion than
had yet been attempted.
The grand assault was finally made in the Senate, under the eye of the
great nullifier, who then occupied the chair of the Vice-President, and
came in an unexpected way. In December, 1829, Mr. Foote of Connecticut
introduced a harmless resolution of inquiry respecting the sales and
surveys of the Western lands. In the long-drawn debate which ensued,
General Hayne of South Carolina, on January 19, 1830, made an elaborate
attack on the New England States. He accused them of a desire to check the
growth of the West in the interests of the protective policy, and tried to
show the sympathy which should exist between the West and South, and lead
them to make common cause against the tariff. Mr. Webster felt that this
attack could not be left unanswered, and the next day he replied to it.
This first speech on Foote's resolution has been so obscured by the
greatness of the second that it is seldom referred to and but little read.
Yet it is one of the most effective retorts, one of the strongest pieces of
destructive criticism, ever uttered in the Senate, although its purpose was
simply to repel the charge of hostility to the West on the part of New
England. The accusation was in fact absurd, and but few years had elapsed
since Mr. Webster and New England had been assailed by Mr. McDuffie for
desiring to build up the West at the expense of the South by the policy of
internal improvements. It was not difficult, therefore, to show the
groundlessness of this new attack, but Mr. Webster did it with consummate
art and great force, shattering Hayne's elaborate argument to pieces and
treading it under foot. Mr. Webster only alluded incidentally to the tariff
agitation in South Carolina, but the crushing nature of the reply inflamed
and mortified Mr. Hayne, who, on the following day, insisted on Mr.
Webster's presence, and spoke for the second time at great length. He made
a bitter attack upon New England, upon Mr. Webster personally, and upon the
character and patriotism of Massachusetts. He then made a full exposition
of the doctrine of nullification, giving free expression of the views and
principles entertained by his master and leader, who presided over the
discussion. The debate had now drifted far from the original resolution,
but its real object had been reached at last. The war upon the tariff had
been begun, and the standard of nullification and of resistance to the
Union and to the laws of Congress had been planted boldly in the Senate of
the United States. The debate was adjourned and Mr. Hayne did not conclude
till January 25. The next day Mr. Webster replied in the second speech on
Foote's resolution, which is popularly known as the "Reply to Hayne."
This great speech marks the highest point attained by Mr. Webster as a
public man. He never surpassed it, he never equalled it afterwards. It was
his zenith intellectually, politically, and as an orator. His fame grew and
extended in the years which followed, he won ample distinction in other
fields, he made many other splendid speeches, but he never went beyond the
reply which he made to the Senator from South Carolina on January 26, 1830.
The doctrine of nullification, which was the main point both with Hayne and
Webster, was no new thing. The word was borrowed from the Kentucky
resolutions of 1799, and the principle was contained in the more cautious
phrases of the contemporary Virginia resolutions and of the Hartford
Convention in 1814. The South Carolinian reproduction in 1830 was fuller
and more elaborate than its predecessors and supported by more acute
reasoning, but the principle was unchanged. Mr. Webster's argument was
simple but overwhelming. He admitted fully the right of revolution. He
accepted the proposition that no one was bound to obey an unconstitutional
law; but the essential question was who was to say whether a law was
unconstitutional or not. Each State has that authority, was the reply of
the nullifiers, and if the decision is against the validity of the law it
cannot be executed within the limits of the dissenting State. The vigorous
sarcasm with which Mr. Webster depicted practical nullification, and showed
that it was nothing more or less than revolution when actually carried out,
was really the conclusive answer to the nullifying doctrine. But Mr.
Calhoun and his school eagerly denied that nullification rested on the
right to revolt against oppression. They argued that it was a
constitutional right; that they could live within the Constitution and
beyond it,--inside the house and outside it at one and the same time. They
contended that, the Constitution being a compact between the States, the
Federal government was the creation of the States; yet, in the same breath,
they declared that the general government was a party to the contract from
which it had itself emanated, in order to get rid of the difficulty of
proving that, while the single dissenting State could decide against the
validity of a law, the twenty or more other States, also parties to the
contract, had no right to deliver an opposite judgment which should be
binding as the opinion of the majority of the court. There was nothing very
ingenious or very profound in the argument by which Mr. Webster
demonstrated the absurdity of the doctrine which attempted to make
nullification a peaceable constitutional privilege, when it could be in
practice nothing else than revolution. But the manner in which he put the
argument was magnificent and final. As he himself said, in this very speech
of Samuel Dexter, "his statement was argument, his inference
demonstration."
The weak places in his armor were historical in their nature. It was
probably necessary, at all events Mr. Webster felt it to be so, to argue
that the Constitution at the outset was not a compact between the States,
but a national instrument, and to distinguish the cases of Virginia and
Kentucky in 1799 and of New England in 1814, from that of South Carolina in
1830. The former point he touched upon lightly, the latter he discussed
ably, eloquently, ingeniously, and at length. Unfortunately the facts were
against him in both instances. When the Constitution was adopted by the
votes of States at Philadelphia, and accepted by the votes of States in
popular conventions, it is safe to say that there was not a man in the
country from Washington and Hamilton on the one side, to George Clinton and
George Mason on the other, who regarded the new system as anything but an
experiment entered upon by the States and from which each and every State
had the right peaceably to withdraw, a right which was very likely to be
exercised. When the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions appeared they were
not opposed on constitutional grounds, but on those of expediency and of
hostility to the revolution which they were considered to embody. Hamilton,
and no one knew the Constitution better than he, treated them as the
beginnings of an attempt to change the government, as the germs of a
conspiracy to destroy the Union. As Dr. Von Holst tersely and accurately
states it, "there was no time as yet to attempt to strangle the healthy
human mind in a net of logical deductions." That was the work reserved for
John C. Calhoun.
What is true of 1799 is true of the New England leaders at Washington when
they discussed the feasibility of secession in 1804; of the declaration in
favor of secession made by Josiah Quincy in Congress a few years later; of
the resistance of New England during the war of 1812, and of the right of
"interposition" set forth by the Hartford Convention. In all these
instances no one troubled himself about the constitutional aspect; it was a
question of expediency, of moral and political right or wrong. In every
case the right was simply stated, and the uniform answer was, such a step
means the overthrow of the present system.
When South Carolina began her resistance to the tariff in 1830, times had
changed, and with them the popular conception of the government established
by the Constitution. It was now a much more serious thing to threaten the
existence of the Federal government than it had been in 1799, or even in
1814. The great fabric which had been gradually built up made an overthrow
of the government look very terrible; it made peaceable secession a
mockery, and a withdrawal from the Union equivalent to civil war. The
boldest hesitated to espouse any principle which was avowedly
revolutionary, and on both sides men wished to have a constitutional
defence for every doctrine which they promulgated. This was the feeling
which led Mr. Calhoun to elaborate and perfect with all the ingenuity of
his acute and logical mind the arguments in favor of nullification as a
constitutional principle. At the same time the theory of nullification,
however much elaborated, had not altered in its essence from the bald and
brief statement of the Kentucky resolutions. The vast change had come on
the other side of the question, in the popular idea of the Constitution. It
was no longer regarded as an experiment from which the contracting parties
had a right to withdraw, but as the charter of a national government. "It
is a critical moment," said Mr. Bell of New Hampshire to Mr. Webster, on
the morning of January 26, "and it is time, it is high time that the
people of this country should know what this Constitution _is_." "Then,"
answered Mr. Webster, "by the blessing of heaven they shall learn, this
day, before the sun goes down, what I understand it to be." With these
words on his lips he entered the senate chamber, and when he replied to
Hayne he stated what the Union and the government had come to be at that
moment. He defined the character of the Union as it existed in 1830, and
that definition so magnificently stated, and with such grand eloquence,
went home to the hearts of the people, and put into noble words the
sentiment which they felt but had not expressed. This was the significance
of the reply to Hayne. It mattered not what men thought of the Constitution
in 1789. The government which was then established might have degenerated
into a confederation little stronger than its predecessor. But the
Constitution did its work better, and converted a confederacy into a
nation. Mr. Webster set forth the national conception of the Union. He
expressed what many men were vaguely thinking and believing, and the
principles which he made clear and definite went on broadening and
deepening until, thirty years afterwards, they had a force sufficient to
sustain the North and enable her to triumph in the terrible struggle which
resulted in the preservation of national life. When Mr. Webster showed that
practical nullification was revolution, he had answered completely the
South Carolinian doctrine, for revolution is not susceptible of
constitutional argument. But in the state of public opinion at that time it
was necessary to discuss nullification on constitutional grounds also, and
Mr. Webster did this as eloquently and ably as the nature of the case
admitted. Whatever the historical defects of his position, he put weapons
into the hands of every friend of the Union, and gave reasons and arguments
to the doubting and timid. Yet after all is said, the meaning of Mr.
Webster's speech in our history and its significance to us are, that it set
forth with every attribute of eloquence the nature of the Union as it had
developed under the Constitution. He took the vague popular conception and
gave it life and form and character. He said, as he alone could say, the
people of the United States are a nation, they are the masters of an
empire, their union is indivisible, and the words which then rang out in
the senate chamber have come down through long years of political conflict
and of civil war, until at last they are part of the political creed of
every one of his fellow-countrymen.
The reply to Hayne cannot, however, be dismissed with a consideration of
its historical and political meaning or of its constitutional significance.
It has a personal and literary importance of hardly less moment. There
comes an occasion, a period perhaps, in the life of every man when he
touches his highest point, when he does his best, or even, under a sudden
inspiration and excitement, something better than his best, and to which he
can never again attain. At the moment it is often impossible to detect this
point, but when the man and his career have passed into history, and we can
survey it all spread out before us like a map, the pinnacle of success can
easily be discovered. The reply to Hayne was the zenith of Mr. Webster's
life, and it is the place of all others where it is fit to pause and study
him as a parliamentary orator and as a master of eloquence.
Before attempting, however, to analyze what he said, let us strive to
recall for a moment the scene of his great triumph. On the morning of the
memorable day, the senate chamber was packed by an eager and excited crowd.
Every seat on the floor and in the galleries was occupied, and all the
available standing-room was filled. The protracted debate, conducted with
so much ability on both sides, had excited the attention of the whole
country, and had given time for the arrival of hundreds of interested
spectators from all parts of the Union, and especially from New England.
The fierce attacks of the Southern leaders had angered and alarmed the
people of the North. They longed with an intense longing to have these
assaults met and repelled, and yet they could not believe that this
apparently desperate feat could be successfully accomplished. Men of the
North and of New England could be known in Washington, in those days, by
their indignant but dejected looks and downcast eyes. They gathered in the
senate chamber on the appointed day, quivering with anticipation, and with
hope and fear struggling for the mastery in their breasts. With them were
mingled those who were there from mere curiosity, and those who had come
rejoicing in the confident expectation that the Northern champion would
suffer failure and defeat.
In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that dead silence which is so
peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human beings
are gathered together, Mr. Webster rose. He had sat impassive and immovable
during all the preceding days, while the storm of argument and invective
had beaten about his head. At last his time had come; and as he rose and
stood forth, drawing himself up to his full height, his personal grandeur
and his majestic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. With perfect
quietness, unaffected apparently by the atmosphere of intense feeling about
him, he said, in a low, even tone: "Mr. President: When the mariner has
been tossed for many days in thick weather and on an unknown sea, he
naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest
glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements
have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence; and,
before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point
from which we departed, that we may, at least, be able to conjecture where
we now are. I ask for the reading of the resolution before the Senate."
This opening sentence was a piece of consummate art. The simple and
appropriate image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved the strained
excitement of the audience, which might have ended by disconcerting the
speaker if it had been maintained. Every one was now at his ease; and when
the monotonous reading of the resolution ceased Mr. Webster was master of
the situation, and had his listeners in complete control. With breathless
attention they followed him as he proceeded. The strong masculine
sentences, the sarcasm, the pathos, the reasoning, the burning appeals to
love of State and country, flowed on unbroken. As his feelings warmed the
fire came into his eyes; there was a glow on his swarthy cheek; his strong
right arm seemed to sweep away resistlessly the whole phalanx of his
opponents, and the deep and melodious cadences of his voice sounded like
harmonious organ-tones as they filled the chamber with their music. As the
last words died away into silence, those who had listened looked
wonderingly at each other, dimly conscious that they had heard one of the
grand speeches which are land-marks in the history of eloquence; and the
men of the North and of New England went forth full of the pride of
victory, for their champion had triumphed, and no assurance was needed to
prove to the world that this time no answer could be made.
As every one knows, this speech contains much more than the argument
against nullification, which has just been discussed, and exhibits all its
author's intellectual gifts in the highest perfection. Mr. Hayne had
touched on every conceivable subject of political importance, including
slavery, which, however covered up, was really at the bottom of every
Southern movement, and was certain sooner or later to come to the surface.
All these various topics Mr. Webster took up, one after another, displaying
a most remarkable strength of grasp and ease of treatment. He dealt with
them all effectively and yet in just proportion. Throughout there are
bursts of eloquence skilfully mingled with statement and argument, so that
the listeners were never wearied by a strained and continuous rhetorical
display; and yet, while the attention was closely held by the even flow of
lucid reasoning, the emotions and passions were from time to time deeply
aroused and strongly excited. In many passages of direct retort Mr. Webster
used an irony which he employed always in a perfectly characteristic way.
He had a strong natural sense of humor, but he never made fun or descended
to trivial efforts to excite laughter against his opponent. He was not a
witty man or a maker of epigrams. But he was a master in the use of a cold,
dignified sarcasm, which at times, and in this instance particularly, he
used freely and mercilessly. Beneath the measured sentences there is a
lurking smile which saves them from being merely savage and cutting
attacks, and yet brings home a keen sense of the absurdity of the
opponent's position. The weapon resembled more the sword of Richard than
the scimetar of Saladin, but it was none the less a keen and trenchant
blade. There is probably no better instance of Mr. Webster's power of
sarcasm than the famous passage in which he replied to Hayne's taunt about
the "murdered coalition," which was said to have existed between Adams and
Calhoun. In a totally different vein is the passage about Massachusetts,
perhaps in its way as good an example as we have of Webster's power of
appealing to the higher and more tender feelings of human nature. The
thought is simple and even obvious, and the expression unadorned, and yet
what he said had that subtle quality which stirred and still stirs the
heart of every man born on the soil of the old Puritan Commonwealth.
The speech as a whole has all the qualities which made Mr. Webster a great
orator, and the same traits run through his other speeches. An analysis of
the reply to Hayne, therefore, gives us all the conditions necessary to
forming a correct idea of Mr. Webster's eloquence, of its characteristics
and its value. The Attic school of oratory subordinated form to thought to
avoid the misuse of ornament, and triumphed over the more florid practice
of the so-called "Asiatics." Rome gave the palm to Atticism, and modern
oratory has gone still farther in the same direction, until its predominant
quality has become that of making sustained appeals to the understanding.
Logical vigilance and long chains of reasoning, avoided by the ancients,
are the essentials of our modern oratory. Many able men have achieved
success under these conditions as forcible and convincing speakers. But the
grand eloquence of modern times is distinguished by the bursts of feeling,
of imagery or of invective, joined with convincing argument. This
combination is rare, and whenever we find a man who possesses it we may be
sure that, in greater or less degree, he is one of the great masters of
eloquence as we understand it. The names of those who in debate or to a
jury have been in every-day practice strong and effective speakers, and
also have thrilled and shaken large masses of men, readily occur to us. To
this class belong Chatham and Burke, Fox, Sheridan and Erskine, Mirabeau
and Vergniaud, Patrick Henry and Daniel Webster.
Mr. Webster was of course essentially modern in his oratory. He relied
chiefly on the sustained appeal to the understanding, and he was a
conspicuous example of the prophetic character which Christianity, and
Protestantism especially, has given to modern eloquence. At the same time
Mr. Webster was in some respects more classical, and resembled more closely
the models of antiquity, than any of those who have been mentioned as
belonging to the same high class. He was wont to pour forth the copious
stream of plain, intelligible observations, and indulge in the varied
appeals to feeling, memory, and interest, which Lord Brougham sets down as
characteristic of ancient oratory. It has been said that while Demosthenes
was a sculptor, Burke was a painter. Mr. Webster was distinctly more of the
former than the latter. He rarely amplified or developed an image or a
description, and in this he followed the Greek rather than the Englishman.
Dr. Francis Lieber wrote: "To test Webster's oratory, which has ever been
very attractive to me, I read a portion of my favorite speeches of
Demosthenes, and then read, always aloud, parts of Webster; then returned
to the Athenian; and Webster stood the test." Apart from the great
compliment which this conveys, such a comparison is very interesting as
showing the similarity between Mr. Webster and the Greek orator. Not only
does the test indicate the merit of Mr. Webster's speeches, but it also
proves that he resembled the Athenian, and that the likeness was more
striking than the inevitable difference born of race and time. Yet there
is no indication that Webster ever made a study of the ancient models or
tried to form himself upon them.
The cause of the classic self-restraint in Webster was partly due to the
artistic sense which made him so devoted to simplicity of diction, and
partly to the cast of his mind. He had a powerful historic imagination, but
not in the least the imagination of the poet, which
"Bodies forth the forms of things unknown."
He could describe with great vividness, brevity, and force what had
happened in the past, what actually existed, or what the future promised.
But his fancy never ran away with him or carried him captive into the
regions of poetry. Imagination of this sort is readily curbed and
controlled, and, if less brilliant, is safer than that defined by
Shakespeare. For this reason, Mr. Webster rarely indulged in long,
descriptive passages, and, while he showed the highest power in treating
anything with a touch of humanity about it, he was sparing of images drawn
wholly from nature, and was not peculiarly successful in depicting in words
natural scenery or phenomena. The result is, that in his highest flights,
while he is often grand and affecting, full of life and power, he never
shows the creative imagination. But if he falls short on the poetic side,
there is the counterbalancing advantage that there is never a false note
nor an overwrought description which offends our taste and jars upon our
sensibilities.
Mr. Webster showed his love of direct simplicity in his style even more
than in his thought or the general arrangement and composition of his
speeches. His sentences are, as a rule, short, and therefore pointed and
intelligible, but they never become monotonous and harsh, the fault to
which brevity is always liable. On the contrary, they are smooth and
flowing, and there is always a sufficient variety of form. The choice of
language is likewise simple. Mr. Webster was a remorseless critic of his
own style, and he had an almost extreme preference for Anglo-Saxon words
and a corresponding dislike of Latin derivatives. The only exception he
made was in his habit of using "commence" instead of its far superior
synonym "begin." His style was vigorous, clear, and direct in the highest
degree, and at the same time warm and full of vitality. He displayed that
rare union of strength with perfect simplicity, the qualities which made
Swift the great master of pure and forcible English.
Charles Fox is credited with saying that a good speech never reads well.
This opinion, taken in the sense in which it was intended, that a
carefully-prepared speech, which reads like an essay, lacks the freshness
and glow that should characterize the oratory of debate, is undoubtedly
correct. But it is equally true that when a speech which we know to have
been good in delivery is equally good in print, a higher intellectual plane
is reached and a higher level of excellence is attained than is possible to
either the mere essay or to the effective retort or argument, which loses
its flavor with the occasion which draws it forth. Mr. Webster's speeches
on the tariff, on the bank, and on like subjects, able as they are, are
necessarily dry, but his speeches on nobler themes are admirable reading.
This is, of course, due to the variety and ease of treatment, to their
power, and to the purity of the style. At the same time, the immediate
effect of what he said was immense, greater, even, than the intrinsic merit
of the speech itself. There has been much discussion as to the amount of
preparation which Mr. Webster made. His occasional orations were, of
course, carefully written out beforehand, a practice which was entirely
proper; but in his great parliamentary speeches, and often in legal
arguments as well, he made but slight preparation in the ordinary sense of
the term. The notes for the two speeches on Foote's resolution were jotted
down on a few sheets of note-paper. The delivery of the second one, his
masterpiece, was practically extemporaneous, and yet it fills seventy
octavo pages and occupied four hours. He is reported to have said that his
whole life had been a preparation for the reply to Hayne. Whether he said
it or not, the statement is perfectly true. The thoughts on the Union and
on the grandeur of American nationality had been garnered up for years, and
this in a greater or less degree was true of all his finest efforts. The
preparation on paper was trifling, but the mental preparation extending
over weeks or days, sometimes, perhaps, over years, was elaborate to the
last point. When the moment came, a night's work would put all the
stored-up thoughts in order, and on the next day they would pour forth with
all the power of a strong mind thoroughly saturated with its subject, and
yet with the vitality of unpremeditated expression, having the fresh glow
of morning upon it, and with no trace of the lamp.
More than all this, however, in the immediate effect of Mr. Webster's
speeches was the physical influence of the man himself. We can but half
understand his eloquence and its influence if we do not carefully study his
physical attributes, his temperament and disposition. In face, form, and
voice, nature did her utmost for Daniel Webster. No envious fairy was
present at his birth to mar these gifts by her malign influence. He seemed
to every one to be a giant; that, at least, is the word we most commonly
find applied to him, and there is no better proof of his enormous physical
impressiveness than this well-known fact, for Mr. Webster was not a man of
extraordinary stature. He was five feet ten inches in height, and, in
health, weighed a little less than two hundred pounds. These are the
proportions of a large man, but there is nothing remarkable about them. We
must look elsewhere than to mere size to discover why men spoke of Webster
as a giant. He had a swarthy complexion and straight black hair. His head
was very large, the brain weighing, as is well known, more than any on
record, except those of Cuvier and of the celebrated bricklayer. At the
same time his head was of noble shape, with a broad and lofty brow, and his
features were finely cut and full of massive strength. His eyes were
extraordinary. They were very dark and deep-set, and, when he began to
rouse himself to action, shone with the deep light of a forge-fire, getting
ever more glowing as excitement rose. His voice was in harmony with his
appearance. It was low and musical in conversation; in debate it was high
but full, ringing out in moments of excitement like a clarion, and then
sinking to deep notes with the solemn richness of organ-tones, while the
words were accompanied by a manner in which grace and dignity mingled in
complete accord. The impression which he produced upon the eye and ear it
is difficult to express. There is no man in all history who came into the
world so equipped physically for speech. In this direction nature could do
no more. The mere look of the man and the sound of his voice made all who
saw and heard him feel that he must be the embodiment of wisdom, dignity,
and strength, divinely eloquent, even if he sat in dreamy silence or
uttered nothing but heavy commonplaces.
It is commonly said that no one of the many pictures of Mr. Webster gives a
true idea of what he was. We can readily believe this when we read the
descriptions which have come down to us. That indefinable quality which we
call personal magnetism, the power of impressing by one's personality every
human being who comes near, was at its height in Mr. Webster. He never, for
instance, punished his children, but when they did wrong he would send for
them and look at them silently. The look, whether of anger or sorrow, was
punishment and rebuke enough. It was the same with other children. The
little daughter of Mr. Wirt once came into a room where Mr. Webster was
sitting with his back toward her, and touched him on the arm. He turned
suddenly, and the child started back with an affrighted cry at the sight of
that dark, stern, melancholy face. But the cloud passed as swiftly as the
shadows on a summer sea, and the next moment the look of affection and
humor brought the frightened child into Mr. Webster's arms, and they were
friends and playmates in an instant.
The power of a look and of changing expression, so magical with a child,
was hardly less so with men. There have been very few instances in history
where there is such constant reference to merely physical attributes as in
the case of Mr. Webster. His general appearance and his eyes are the first
and last things alluded to in every contemporary description. Every one is
familiar with the story of the English navvy who pointed at Mr. Webster in
the streets of Liverpool and said, "There goes a king." Sidney Smith
exclaimed when he saw him, "Good heavens, he is a small cathedral by
himself." Carlyle, no lover of America, wrote to Emerson:--
"Not many days ago I saw at breakfast the notablest of all your
notabilities, Daniel Webster. He is a magnificent specimen. You
might say to all the world, 'This is our Yankee Englishman; such
limbs we make in Yankee land!' As a logic fencer, or parliamentary
Hercules, one would incline to back him at first sight against all
the extant world. The tanned complexion; that amorphous crag-like
face; the dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull
anthracite furnaces needing only to be _blown_; the mastiff mouth
accurately closed; I have not traced so much of _silent Berserkir
rage_ that I remember of in any man. 'I guess I should not like to
be your nigger!' Webster is not loquacious, but he is pertinent,
conclusive; a dignified, perfectly bred man, though not English in
breeding; a man worthy of the best reception among us, and meeting
such I understand."
Such was the effect produced by Mr. Webster when in England, and it was a
universal impression. Wherever he went men felt in the depths of their
being the amazing force of his personal presence. He could control an
audience by a look, and could extort applause from hostile listeners by a
mere glance. On one occasion, after the 7th of March speech, there is a
story that a noted abolitionist leader was present in the crowd gathered to
hear Mr. Webster, and this bitter opponent is reported to have said
afterwards, "When Webster, speaking of secession, asked 'what is to become
of me,' I was thrilled with a sense of some awful impending calamity." The
story may be apocryphal, but there can be no doubt of its essential truth
so far as the effect of Mr. Webster's personal presence goes. People looked
at him, and that was enough. Mr. Parton in his essay speaks of seeing
Webster at a public dinner, sitting at the head of the table with a bottle
of Madeira under his yellow waistcoat, and looking like Jove. When he
presided at the Cooper memorial meeting in New York he uttered only a few
stately platitudes, and yet every one went away with the firm conviction
that they had heard him speak words of the profoundest wisdom and grandest
eloquence.
The temptation to rely on his marvellous physical gifts grew on him as he
became older, which was to be expected with a man of his temperament. Even
in his early days, when he was not in action, he had an impassible and
slumberous look; and when he sat listening to the invective of Hayne, no
emotion could be traced on his cold, dark, melancholy face, or in the
cavernous eyes shining with a dull light. This all vanished when he began
to speak, and, as he poured forth his strong, weighty sentences, there was
no lack of expression or of movement. But Mr. Webster, despite his capacity
for work, and his protracted and often intense labor, was constitutionally
indolent, and this sluggishness of temperament increased very much as he
grew older. It extended from the periods of repose to those of action
until, in his later years, a direct stimulus was needed to make him exert
himself. Even to the last the mighty power was still there in undiminished
strength, but it was not willingly put forth. Sometimes the outside impulse
would not come; sometimes the most trivial incident would suffice, and like
a spark on the train of gunpowder would bring a sudden burst of eloquence,
electrifying all who listened. On one occasion he was arguing a case to the
jury. He was talking in his heaviest and most ponderous fashion, and with
half-closed eyes. The court and the jurymen were nearly asleep as Mr.
Webster argued on, stating the law quite wrongly to his nodding listeners.
The counsel on the other side interrupted him and called the attention of
the court to Mr. Webster's presentation of the law. The judge, thus
awakened, explained to the jury that the law was not as Mr. Webster stated
it. While this colloquy was in progress Mr. Webster roused up, pushed back
his thick hair, shook himself, and glanced about him with the look of a
caged lion. When the judge paused, he turned again to the jury, his eyes no
longer half shut but wide open and glowing with excitement. Raising his
voice, he said, in tones which made every one start: "If my client could
recover under the law as I stated it, how much more is he entitled to
recover under the law as laid down by the court;" and then, the jury now
being thoroughly awake, he poured forth a flood of eloquent argument and
won his case. In his latter days Mr. Webster made many careless and dull
speeches and carried them through by the power of his look and manner, but
the time never came when, if fairly aroused, he failed to sway the hearts
and understandings of men by a grand and splendid eloquence. The lion slept
very often, but it never became safe to rouse him from his slumber.
It was soon after the reply to Hayne that Mr. Webster made his great
argument for the government in the White murder case. One other address to
a jury in the Goodridge case, and the defence of Judge Prescott before the
Massachusetts Senate, which is of similar character, have been preserved to
us. The speech for Prescott is a strong, dignified appeal to the sober, and
yet sympathetic, judgment of his hearers, but wholly free from any attempt
to confuse or mislead, or to sway the decision by unwholesome pathos. Under
the circumstances, which were very adverse to his client, the argument was
a model of its kind, and contains some very fine passages full of the
solemn force so characteristic of its author. The Goodridge speech is
chiefly remarkable for the ease with which Mr. Webster unravelled a
complicated set of facts, demonstrated that the accuser was in reality the
guilty party, and carried irresistible conviction to the minds of the
jurors. It was connected with a remarkable exhibition of his power of
cross-examination, which was not only acute and penetrating, but extremely
terrifying to a recalcitrant witness. The argument in the White case, as a
specimen of eloquence, stands on far higher ground than either of the other
two, and, apart from the nature of the subject, ranks with the very best of
Mr. Webster's oratorical triumphs. The opening of the speech, comprising
the account of the murder and the analysis of the workings of a mind seared
with the remembrance of a horrid crime, must be placed among the very
finest masterpieces of modern oratory. The description of the feelings of
the murderer has a touch of the creative power, but, taken in conjunction
with the wonderful picture of the deed itself, the whole exhibits the
highest imaginative excellence, and displays the possession of an
extraordinary dramatic force such as Mr. Webster rarely exerted. It has the
same power of exciting a kind of horror and of making us shudder with a
creeping, nameless terror as the scene after the murder of Duncan, when
Macbeth rushes out from the chamber of death, crying, "I have done the
deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?" I have studied this famous exordium
with extreme care, and I have sought diligently in the works of all the
great modern orators, and of some of the ancient as well, for similar
passages of higher merit. My quest has been in vain. Mr. Webster's
description of the White murder, and of the ghastly haunting sense of guilt
which pursued the assassin, has never been surpassed in dramatic force by
any speaker, whether in debate or before a jury. Perhaps the most
celebrated descriptive passage in the literature of modern eloquence is the
picture drawn by Burke of the descent of Hyder Ali upon the plains of the
Carnatic, but even that certainly falls short of the opening of Webster's
speech in simple force as well as in dramatic power. Burke depicted with
all the ardor of his nature and with a wealth of color a great invasion
which swept thousands to destruction. Webster's theme was a cold-blooded
murder in a quiet New England town. Comparison between such topics, when
one is so infinitely larger than the other, seems at first sight almost
impossible. But Mr. Webster also dealt with the workings of the human heart
under the influence of the most terrible passions, and those have furnished
sufficient material for the genius of Shakespeare. The test of excellence
is in the treatment, and in this instance Mr. Webster has never been
excelled. The effect of that exordium, delivered as he alone could have
delivered it, must have been appalling. He was accused of having been
brought into the case to hurry the jury beyond the law and evidence, and
his whole speech was certainly calculated to drive any body of men,
terror-stricken by his eloquence, wherever he wished them to go. Mr.
Webster did not have that versatility and variety of eloquence which we
associate with the speakers who have produced the most startling effect
upon that complex thing called a jury. He never showed that rapid
alternation of wit, humor, pathos, invective, sublimity, and ingenuity
which have been characteristic of the greatest advocates. Before a jury as
everywhere else he was direct and simple. He awed and terrified jurymen; he
convinced their reason; but he commanded rather than persuaded, and carried
them with him by sheer force of eloquence and argument, and by his
overpowering personality.
The extravagant admiration which Mr. Webster excited among his followers
has undoubtedly exaggerated his greatness in many respects; but, high as
the praise bestowed upon him as an orator has been, in that direction at
least he has certainly not been overestimated. The reverse rather is true.
Mr. Webster was, of course, the greatest orator this country has ever
produced. Patrick Henry's fame rests wholly on tradition. The same is true
of Hamilton, who, moreover, never had an opportunity adequate to his
talents, which were unquestionably of the first order. Fisher Ames's
reputation was due to a single speech which is distinctly inferior to many
of Webster's. Clay's oratory has not stood the test of time; his speeches,
which were so wonderfully effective when he uttered them, seem dead and
cold and rather thin as we read them to-day. Calhoun was a great debater,
but was too dry and hard for the highest eloquence. John Quincy Adams,
despite his physical limitations, carried the eloquence of combat and
bitter retort to the highest point in the splendid battles of his
congressional career, but his learning, readiness, power of expression,
argument, and scathing sarcasm were not rounded into a perfect whole by the
more graceful attributes which also form an essential part of oratory.
Mr. Webster need not fear comparison with any of his countrymen, and he has
no reason to shun it with the greatest masters of speech in England. He had
much of the grandeur of Chatham, with whom it is impossible to compare him
or indeed any one else, for the Great Commoner lives only in fragments of
doubtful accuracy. Sheridan was universally considered to have made the
most splendid speech of his day. Yet the speech on the Begums as given by
Moore does not cast Webster's best work at all into the shade. Webster did
not have Sheridan's brilliant wit, but on the other hand he was never
forced, never involved, never guilty of ornament, which fastidious judges
would now pronounce tawdry. Webster's best speeches read much better than
anything of Sheridan, and, so far as we can tell from careful descriptions,
his manner, look, and delivery were far more imposing. The "manly
eloquence" of Fox seems to have resembled Webster's more closely than that
of any other of his English rivals. Fox was more fertile, more brilliant,
more surprising than Webster, and had more quickness and dash, and a
greater ease and charm of manner. But he was often careless, and sometimes
fell into repetitions, from which, of course, no great speaker can be
wholly free any more than he can keep entirely clear of commonplaces.
Webster gained upon him by superior finish and by greater weight of
argument. Before a jury Webster fell behind Erskine as he did behind
Choate, although neither of them ever produced anything at all comparable
to the speech on the White murder; but in the Senate, and in the general
field of oratory, he rises high above them both. The man with whom Webster
is oftenest compared, and the last to be mentioned, is of course Burke. It
may be conceded at once that in creative imagination, and in richness of
imagery and language, Burke ranks above Webster. But no one would ever have
said of Webster as Goldsmith did of Burke:--
"Who, too deep for his hearers, still went on refining,
And thought of convincing while they thought of dining."
Webster never sinned by over refinement or over ingenuity, for both were
utterly foreign to his nature. Still less did he impair his power in the
Senate as Burke did in the Commons by talking too often and too much. If he
did not have the extreme beauty and grace of which Burke was capable, he
was more forcible and struck harder and more weighty blows. He was greatly
aided in this by his brief and measured periods, and his strength was never
wasted in long and elaborate sentences. Webster, moreover, would never have
degenerated into the ranting excitement which led Burke to draw a knife
from his bosom and cast it on the floor of the House. This illustrates what
was, perhaps, Mr. Webster's very strongest point,--his absolute good taste.
He may have been ponderous at times in his later years. We know that he was
occasionally heavy, pompous, and even dull, but he never violated the rules
of the nicest taste. Other men have been more versatile, possessed of a
richer imagination, and more gorgeous style, with a more brilliant wit and
a keener sarcasm, but there is not one who is so absolutely free from
faults of taste as Webster, or who is so uniformly simple and pure in
thought and style, even to the point of severity.[1]
[Footnote 1: A volume might be written comparing Mr. Webster with other
great orators. Only the briefest and most rudimentary treatment of the
subject is possible here. A most excellent study of the comparative
excellence of Webster's eloquence has been made by Judge Chamberlain,
Librarian of the Boston Public Library, in a speech at the dinner of the
Dartmouth Alumni, which has since been printed as a pamphlet.]
It is easy to compare Mr. Webster with this and the other great orator,
and to select points of resemblance and of difference, and show where Mr.
Webster was superior and where he fell behind. But the final verdict must
be upon all his qualities taken together. He had the most extraordinary
physical gifts of face, form, and voice, and employed them to the best
advantage. Thus equipped, he delivered a long series of great speeches
which can be read to-day with the deepest interest, instruction, and
pleasure. He had dignity, grandeur, and force, a strong historic
imagination, and great dramatic power when he chose to exert it. He
possessed an unerring taste, a capacity for vigorous and telling sarcasm, a
glow and fire none the less intense because they were subdued, perfect
clearness of statement joined to the highest skill in argument, and he was
master of a style which was as forcible as it was simple and pure. Take him
for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator this country has ever
known, but in the history of eloquence his name will stand with those of
Demosthenes and Cicero, of Chatham and Burke.