Four Great Americans: Washington, Franklin, Webster, Lincoln Part 21

In 1814, the war that had been going on so long came to an end. But now there were other subjects which claimed Mr. Webster's attention in Congress.

Then, as now, there were important questions regarding the money of the nation; and upon these questions there was great difference of opinion.

Daniel Webster's speeches, in favor of a sound currency, did much to maintain the national credit and to save the country from bankruptcy.

The people of New Hamps.h.i.+re were so well pleased with the record which he made in Congress that, when his first term expired, they re-elected him for a second.

XI.--THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.

In 1816, before his second term in Congress had expired, Daniel Webster removed with his family to Boston. He had lived in Portsmouth nine years, and he now felt that he needed a wider field for the exercise of his talents.

He was now no longer the slender, delicate person that he had been in his boyhood and youth. He was a man of n.o.ble mien--a st.u.r.dy, dignified personage, who bore the marks of greatness upon him.

People said, "When Daniel Webster walked the streets of Boston, he made the buildings look small."

As soon as his term in Congress had expired, he began the practice of law in Boston.

For nearly seven years he devoted himself strictly to his profession. Of course, he at once took his place as the leading lawyer of New England.

Indeed, he soon became known as the ablest counsellor and advocate in America.

The best business of the country now came to him. His income was very large, amounting to more than $20,000 a year.

And during this time there was no harder worker than he. In fact, his natural genius could have done but little for him, had it not been for his untiring industry.

One of his first great victories in law was that which is known as the Dartmouth College case. The lawmakers of New Hamps.h.i.+re had attempted to pa.s.s a law to alter the charter of the college. By doing this they would endanger the usefulness and prosperity of that great school, in order to favor the selfish projects of its enemies.

Daniel Webster undertook to defend the college. The speech which he made before the Supreme Court of the United States was a masterly effort.

"Sir," he said, "you may destroy this little inst.i.tution--it is weak, it is in your hands. I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out.

"But if you do so, you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater lights of science which, for more than a century, have thrown their light over our land!"

He won the case; and this, more than anything else, helped to gain for him the reputation of being the ablest lawyer in the United States.

XII.--WEBSTER'S GREAT ORATIONS.

In 1820, when he was thirty-eight years old, Daniel Webster was chosen to deliver an oration at a great meeting of New Englanders at Plymouth, Ma.s.sachusetts.

Plymouth is the place where the Pilgrims landed in 1620. Just two hundred years had pa.s.sed since that time, and this meeting was to celebrate the memory of the brave men and women who had risked so much to found new homes in what was then a bleak wilderness.

The speech which Mr. Webster delivered was one of the greatest ever heard in America. It placed him at once at the head of American orators.

John Adams, the second president of the United States, was then living, a very old man. He said, "This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard. It ought to be read at the end of every century, and, indeed, at the end of every year, forever and ever."

But this was only the first of many great addresses by Mr. Webster. In 1825, he delivered an oration at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill monument. Eighteen years later, when that monument was finished, he delivered another. Many of Mr. Webster's admirers think that these two orations are his masterpieces.

On July 4th, 1826, the United States had been independent just fifty years. On that day there pa.s.sed away two of the greatest men of the country--John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.

Both were ex-presidents, and both had been leaders in the councils of the nation. It was in memory of these two patriots that Daniel Webster was called to deliver an oration in Faneuil Hall, Boston.

No other funeral oration has ever been delivered in any age or country that was equal to this in eloquence. Like all his other discourses, it was full of patriotic feeling.

"This lovely land," he said, "this glorious liberty, these benign inst.i.tutions, the dear purchase of our fathers, are ours; ours to enjoy, ours to preserve, ours to transmit. Generations past and generations to come hold us responsible for this sacred trust.

"Our fathers, from behind, admonish us with their anxious, paternal voices; posterity calls out to us from the bosom of the future; the world turns. .h.i.ther its solicitous eyes; all, all conjure us to act wisely and faithfully in the relation which we sustain."

Most of his other great speeches were delivered in Congress, and are, therefore, political in tone and subject.

Great as Daniel Webster was in politics and in law, it is as an orator and patriot that his name will be longest remembered.

XIII.--MR. WEBSTER IN THE SENATE.

When Daniel Webster was forty years old, the people of Boston elected him to represent them in Congress. They were so well pleased with all that he did while there, that they re-elected him twice.

In June, 1827, the legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts chose him to be United States senator for a term of six years. He was at that time the most famous man in Ma.s.sachusetts, and his name was known and honored in every state of the Union.

After that he was re-elected to the same place again and again; and for more than twenty years he continued to be the distinguished senator from Ma.s.sachusetts.

I cannot now tell you of all his public services during the long period that he sat in Congress. Indeed, there are some things that you would find hard to understand until you have learned more about the history of our country. But you will by-and-by read of them in the larger books which you will study at school; and, no doubt, you will also read some of his great addresses and orations.

It was in 1830 that he delivered the most famous of all his speeches in the senate chamber of the United States. This speech is commonly called, "The Reply to Hayne."

I shall not here try to explain the purport of Mr. Hayne's speeches--for there were two of them. I shall not try to describe the circ.u.mstances which led Mr. Webster to make his famous reply to them.

But I will quote Mr. Webster's closing sentences. Forty years ago the school-boys all over the country were accustomed to memorize and declaim these patriotic utterances.

"When my eyes shall be turned to behold, for the last time, the sun in heaven, may I not see him s.h.i.+ning on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on states dissevered, discordant, belligerent, on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood!

"Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original l.u.s.tre, not a stripe erased or polluted, not a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory, 'What is all this worth?' nor those other words of delusion and folly, 'Liberty first and Union afterwards;' but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its folds, as they float over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every American heart--Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"

In 1841, Daniel Webster resigned his seat in the senate. He did this in order to become secretary of state in the cabinet of the newly elected president, William Henry Harrison.

But President Harrison died on the 5th of April, after having held his office just one month; and his place was taken by the vice-president, John Tyler. Mr. Webster now felt that his position in the cabinet would not be a pleasant one; but he continued to hold it for nearly two years.

His most important act as secretary of state was to conclude a treaty with England which fixed the northeastern boundary of the United States.

This treaty is known in history as the Ashburton Treaty.

In 1843, Mr. Webster resigned his place in President Tyler's cabinet.

But he was not allowed to remain long in private life. Two years later he was again elected to the United States senate.

About this time, Texas was annexed to the United States. But Mr. Webster did not favor this, for he believed that such an act was contrary to the Const.i.tution of our country.