Mr. Webster might as well have attempted to stay the incoming tide at Marshfield with a rampart of sand as to seek to check the anti-slavery movement by a speech. Nevertheless, he produced a great effect. His mind once made up, he spared nothing to win the cast. He gathered all his forces; his great intellect, his splendid eloquence, his fame which had become one of the treasured possessions of his country,--all were given to the work. The blow fell with terrible force, and here, at last, we come to the real mischief which was wrought. The 7th of March speech demoralized New England and the whole North. The abolitionists showed by bitter anger the pain, disappointment, and dismay which this speech brought. The Free-Soil party quivered and sank for the moment beneath the shock. The whole anti-slavery movement recoiled. The conservative reaction which Mr.
Webster endeavored to produce came and triumphed. Chiefly by his exertions the compromise policy was accepted and sustained by the country. The conservative elements everywhere rallied to his support, and by his ability and eloquence it seemed as if he had prevailed and brought the people over to his opinions. It was a wonderful tribute to his power and influence, but the triumph was hollow and short-lived. He had attempted to compa.s.s an impossibility. Nothing could kill the principles of human liberty, not even a speech by Daniel Webster, backed by all his intellect and knowledge, his eloquence and his renown. The anti-slavery movement was checked for the time, and pro-slavery democracy, the only other positive political force, reigned supreme. But amid the falling ruins of the Whig party, and the evanescent success of the Native Americans, the party of human rights revived; and when it rose again, taught by the trials and misfortunes of 1850, it rose with a strength which Mr. Webster had never dreamed of, and, in 1856, polled nearly a million and a half of votes for Fremont. The rise and final triumph of the Republican party was the condemnation of the 7th of March speech and of the policy which put the government of the country in the hands of Franklin Pierce and James Buchanan. When the war came, inspiration was not found in the 7th of March speech. In that dark hour, men remembered the Daniel Webster who replied to Hayne, and turned away from the man who had sought for peace by advocating the great compromise of Henry Clay.
The disapprobation and disappointment which were manifested in the North after the 7th of March speech could not be overlooked. Men thought and said that Mr. Webster had spoken in behalf of the South and of slavery. Whatever his intentions may have been, this was what the speech seemed to mean and this was its effect, and the North saw it more and more clearly as time went on. Mr. Webster never indulged in personal attacks, but at the same time he was too haughty a man ever to engage in an exchange of compliments in debate. He never was in the habit of saying pleasant things to his opponents in the Senate merely as a matter of agreeable courtesy. In this direction, as in its opposite, he usually maintained a cold silence. But on the 7th of March he elaborately complimented Calhoun, and went out of his way to flatter Virginia and Mr. Mason personally. This struck close observers with surprise, but it was the real purpose of the speech which went home to the people of the North. He had advocated measures which with slight exceptions were altogether what the South wanted, and the South so understood it. On the 30th of March Mr. Morehead wrote to Mr. Crittenden that Mr. Webster"s appointment as Secretary of State would now be very acceptable to the South. No more bitter commentary could have been made.
The people were blinded and dazzled at first, but they gradually awoke and perceived the error that had been committed.
Mr. Webster, however, needed nothing from outside to inform him as to his conduct and its results. At the bottom of his heart and in the depths of his conscience he knew that he had made a dreadful mistake. He did not flinch. He went on in his new path without apparent faltering. His speech on the compromise measures went farther than that of the 7th of March. But if we study his speeches and letters between 1850 and the day of his death, we can detect changes in them, which show plainly enough that the writer was not at ease, that he was not master of that real conscience of which he boasted.
His friends, after the first shock of surprise, rallied to his support, and he spoke frequently at union meetings, and undertook, by making immense efforts, to convince the country that the compromise measures were right and necessary, and that the doctrines of the 7th of March speech ought to be sustained. In pursuance of this object, during the winter of 1850 and the summer of the following year, he wrote several public letters on the compromise measures, and he addressed great meetings on various occasions, in New England, New York, and as far south as Virginia. We are at once struck by a marked change in the character and tone of these speeches, which produced a great effect in establishing the compromise policy. It had never been Mr. Webster"s habit to misrepresent or abuse his opponents. Now he confounded the extreme separatism of the abolitionists and the const.i.tutional opposition of the Free-Soil party, and involved all opponents of slavery in a common condemnation. It was wilful misrepresentation to talk of the Free-Soilers as if they were identical with the abolitionists, and no one knew better than Mr. Webster the distinction between the two, one being ready to secede to get rid of slavery, the other offering only a const.i.tutional resistance to its extension. His tone toward his opponents was correspondingly bitter. When he first arrived in Boston, after his speech, and spoke to the great crowd in front of the Revere House, he said, "I shall support no agitations having their foundations in unreal, ghostly abstractions." Slavery had now become "an unreal, ghostly abstraction," although it must still have appeared to the negroes something very like a hard fact. There were men in that crowd, too, who had not forgotten the n.o.ble words with which Mr.
Webster in 1837 had defended the character of the opponents of slavery, and the sound of this new gospel from his lips fell strangely on their ears. So he goes on from one union meeting to another, and in speech after speech there is the same bitter tone which had been so foreign to him in all his previous utterances. The supporters of the anti-slavery movement he denounces as insane. He reiterates his opposition to slave extension, and in the same breath argues that the Union must be preserved by giving way to the South. The feeling is upon him that the old parties are breaking down under the pressure of this "ghostly abstraction," this agitation which he tries to prove to the young men of the country and to his fellow-citizens everywhere is "wholly fact.i.tious." The Fugitive Slave Law is not in the form which he wants, but still he defends it and supports it. The first fruits of his policy of peace are seen in riots in Boston, and he personally advises with a Boston lawyer who has undertaken the cases against the fugitive slaves. It was undoubtedly his duty, as Mr. Curtis says, to enforce and support the law as the President"s adviser, but his personal attention and interest were not required in slave cases, nor would they have been given a year before. The Wilmot Proviso, that doctrine which he claimed as his own in 1847, when it was a sentiment on which Whigs could not differ, he now calls "a mere abstraction." He struggles to put slavery aside for the tariff, but it will not down at his bidding, and he himself cannot leave it alone. Finally he concludes this compromise campaign with a great speech on laying the foundation of the capitol extension, and makes a pathetic appeal to the South to maintain the Union. They are not pleasant to read, these speeches in the Senate and before the people in behalf of the compromise policy. They are harsh and bitter; they do not ring true.
Daniel Webster knew when he was delivering them that that was not the way to save the Union, or that, at all events, it was not the right way for him to do it.
The same peculiarity can be discerned in his letters. The fun and humor which had hitherto run through his correspondence seems now to fade away as if blighted. On September 10, 1850, he writes to Mr. Harvey that since March 7 there has not been an hour in which he has not felt a "crushing sense of anxiety and responsibility." He couples this with the declaration that his own part is acted and he is satisfied; but if his anxiety was solely of a public nature, why did it date from March 7, when, prior to that time, there was much greater cause for alarm than afterwards. In everything he said or wrote he continually recurs to the slavery question and always in a defensive tone, usually with a sneer or a fling at the abolitionists and anti-slavery party. The spirit of unrest had seized him.
He was disturbed and ill at ease. He never admitted it, even to himself, but his mind was not at peace, and he could not conceal the fact. Posterity can see the evidences of it plainly enough, and a man of his intellect and fame knew that with posterity the final reckoning must be made. No man can say that Mr. Webster antic.i.p.ated the unfavorable judgment which his countrymen have pa.s.sed upon his conduct, but that in his heart he feared such a judgment cannot be doubted.
It is impossible to determine with perfect accuracy any man"s motives in what he says or does. They are so complex, they are so often undefined, even in the mind of the man himself, that no one can pretend to make an absolutely correct a.n.a.lysis. There have been many theories as to the motives which led Mr. Webster to make the 7th of March speech. In the heat of contemporary strife his enemies set it down as a mere bid to secure Southern support for the presidency, but this is a harsh and narrow view.
The longing for the presidency weakened Mr. Webster as a public man from the time when it first took possession of him after the reply to Hayne. It undoubtedly had a weakening effect upon him in the winter of 1850, and had some influence upon the speech of the 7th of March. But it is unjust to say that it did more. It certainly was far removed from being a controlling motive. His friends, on the other hand, declare that he was governed solely by the highest and most disinterested patriotism, by the truest wisdom.
This explanation, like that of his foes, fails by going too far and being too simple. His motives were mixed. His chief desire was to preserve and maintain the Union. He wished to stand forth as the great saviour and pacificator. On the one side was the South, compact, aggressive, bound together by slavery, the greatest political force in the country. On the other was a weak Free-Soil party, and a widely diffused and earnest moral sentiment without organization or tangible political power. Mr. Webster concluded that the way to save the Union and the Const.i.tution, and to achieve the success which he desired, was to go with the heaviest battalions. He therefore espoused the Southern side, for the compromise was in the Southern interest, and smote the anti-slavery movement with all his strength. He reasoned correctly that peace could come only by administering a severe check to one of the two contending parties. He erred in attempting to arrest the one which all modern history showed was irresistible. It is no doubt true, as appears by his cabinet opinion recently printed, that he stood ready to meet the first overt act on the part of the South with force. Mr. Webster would not have hesitated to have struck hard at any body of men or any State which ventured to a.s.sail the Union. But he also believed that the true way to prevent any overt act on the part of the South was by concession, and that was precisely the object which the Southern leaders sought to obtain. We may grant all the patriotism and all the sincere devotion to the cause of the Const.i.tution which is claimed for him, but nothing can acquit Mr. Webster of error in the methods which he chose to adopt for the maintenance of peace and the preservation of the Union. If the 7th of March speech was right, then all that had gone before was false and wrong. In that speech he broke from his past, from his own principles and from the principles of New England, and closed his splendid public career with a terrible mistake.
CHAPTER X.
THE LAST YEARS.
The story of the remainder of Mr. Webster"s public life, outside of and apart from the slavery question, can be quickly told. General Taylor died suddenly on July 9, 1850, and this event led to an immediate and complete reorganization of the cabinet. Mr. Fillmore at once offered the post of Secretary of State to Mr. Webster, who accepted it, resigned his seat in the Senate, and, on July 23, a.s.sumed his new position. No great negotiation like that with Lord Ashburton marked this second term of office in the Department of State, but there were a number of important and some very complicated affairs, which Mr. Webster managed with the wisdom, tact, and dignity which made him so admirably fit for this high position.
The best-known incident of this period was that which gave rise to the famous "Hulsemann letter." President Taylor had sent an agent to Hungary to report upon the condition of the revolutionary government, with the intention of recognizing it if there were sufficient grounds for doing so.
When the agent arrived, the revolution was crushed, and he reported to the President against recognition. These papers were transmitted to the Senate in March, 1850. Mr. Hulsemann, the Austrian _charge_, thereupon complained of the action of our administration, and Mr. Clayton, then Secretary of State, replied that the mission of the agent had been simply to gather information. On receiving further instructions from his government, Mr.
Hulsemann rejoined to Mr. Clayton, and it fell to Mr. Webster to reply, which he did on December 21, 1850. The note of the Austrian _charge_ was in a hectoring and highly offensive tone, and Mr. Webster felt the necessity of administering a sharp rebuke. "The Hulsemann letter," as it was called, was accordingly dispatched. It set forth strongly the right of the United States and their intention to recognize any _de facto_ revolutionary government, and to seek information in all proper ways in order to guide their action. The argument on this point was admirably and forcibly stated, and it was accompanied by a bold vindication of the American policy, and by some severe and wholesome reproof. Mr. Webster had two objects. One was to awaken the people of Europe to a sense of the greatness of this country, the other to touch the national pride at home. He did both. The foreign representatives learned a lesson which they never forgot, and which opened their eyes to the fact that we were no longer colonies, and the national pride was also aroused. Mr. Webster admitted that the letter was, in some respects, boastful and rough. This was a fair criticism, and it may be justly said that such a tone was hardly worthy of the author. But, on the other hand, Hulsemann"s impertinence fully justified such a reply, and a little rough domineering was, perhaps, the very thing needed. It is certain that the letter fully answered Mr. Webster"s purpose, and excited a great deal of popular enthusiasm. The affair did not, however, end here. Mr.
Hulsemann became very mild, but he soon lost his temper again. Kossuth and the refugees in Turkey were brought to this country in a United States frigate. The Hungarian hero was received with a burst of enthusiasm that induced him to hope for substantial aid, which was, of course, wholly visionary. The popular excitement made it difficult for Mr. Webster to steer a proper course, but he succeeded, by great tact, in showing his own sympathy, and, so far as possible, that of the government, for the cause of Hungarian independence and for its leader, without going too far or committing any indiscretion which could justify a breach of international relations with Austria. Mr. Webster"s course, including a speech at a dinner in Boston, in which he made an eloquent allusion to Hungary and Kossuth, although carefully guarded, aroused the ire of Mr. Hulsemann, who left the country, after writing a letter of indignant farewell to the Secretary of State. Mr. Webster replied, through Mr. Hunter, with extreme coolness, confining himself to an approval of the gentleman selected by Mr.
Hulsemann to represent Austria after the latter"s departure.
The other affairs which occupied Mr. Webster"s official attention at this time made less noise than that with Austria, but they were more complicated and some of them far more perilous to the peace of the country. The most important was that growing out of the Clayton-Bulwer treaty in regard to the neutrality of the contemplated ca.n.a.l in Nicaragua. This led to a prolonged correspondence about the protectorate of Great Britain in Nicaragua, and to a withdrawal of her claim to exact port-charges. It is interesting to observe the influence which Mr. Webster at once obtained with Sir Henry Bulwer and the respect in which he was held by that experienced diplomatist. Besides this discussion with England, there was a sharp dispute with Mexico about the right of way over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, and the troubles on the Texan boundary before Congress had acted upon the subject. Then came the Lopez invasion of Cuba, supported by bodies of volunteers enlisted in the United States, which, by its failure and its results, involved our government in a number of difficult questions. The most serious was the riot at New Orleans, where the Spanish consulate was sacked by a mob. To render due reparation for this outrage without wounding the national pride by apparent humiliation was no easy task. Mr. Webster settled everything, however, with a judgment, tact, and dignity which prevented war with Spain and yet excited no resentment at home. At a later period, when the Kossuth affair was drawing to an end, the perennial difficulty about the fisheries revived and was added to our Central American troubles with Great Britain, and this, together with the affair of the Lobos Islands, occupied Mr. Webster"s attention, and drew forth some able and important dispatches during the summer of 1852, in the last months of his life.
While the struggle was in progress to convince the country of the value and justice of the compromise measures and to compel their acceptance, another presidential election drew on. It was the signal for the last desperate attempt to obtain the Whig nomination for Mr. Webster, and it seemed at first sight as if the party must finally take up the New England leader.
Mr. Clay was wholly out of the race, and his last hour was near. There was absolutely no one who, in fame, ability, public services, and experience could be compared for one moment with Mr. Webster. The opportunity was obvious enough; it awakened all Mr. Webster"s hopes, and excited the ardor of his friends. A formal and organized movement, such as had never before been made, was set on foot to promote his candidacy, and a vigorous and earnest address to the people was issued by his friends in Ma.s.sachusetts.
The result demonstrated, if demonstration were needed, that Mr. Webster had not, even under the most favorable circ.u.mstances, the remotest chance for the presidency. His friends saw this plainly enough before the convention met, but he himself regarded the great prize as at last surely within his grasp. Mr. Choate, who was to lead the Webster delegates, went to Washington the day before the convention a.s.sembled. He called on Mr.
Webster and found him so filled with the belief that he should be nominated that it seemed cruel to undeceive him. Mr. Choate, at all events, had not the heart for the task, and went back to Baltimore to lead the forlorn hope with gallant fidelity and with an eloquence as brilliant if not so grand as that of Mr. Webster himself. A majority[1] of the convention divided their votes very unequally between Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster, the former receiving 133, the latter 29, on the first ballot, while General Scott had 131. Forty-five ballots were taken, without any substantial change, and then General Scott began to increase his strength, and was nominated on the fifty-third ballot, receiving 159 votes. Most of General Scott"s supporters were opposed to resolutions sustaining the compromise measures, while those who voted for Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster favored that policy.
General Scott owed his nomination to a compromise, which consisted in inserting in the platform a clause strongly approving Mr. Clay"s measures.
Mr. Webster expected the Fillmore delegates to come to him, an unlikely event when they were so much more numerous than his friends, and, moreover, they never showed the slightest inclination to do so. They were chiefly from the South, and as they chose to consider Mr. Fillmore and not his secretary the representative of compromise, they reasonably enough expected the latter to give way. The desperate stubbornness of Mr. Webster"s adherents resulted in the nomination of Scott. It seemed hard that the Southern Whigs should have done so little for Mr. Webster after he had done and sacrificed so much to advance and defend their interests. But the South was practical. In the 7th of March speech they had got from Mr. Webster all they could expect or desire. It was quite possible, in fact it was highly probable, that, once in the presidency, he could not be controlled or guided by the slave-power or by any other sectional influence. Mr.
Fillmore, inferior in every way to Mr. Webster in intellect, in force, in reputation, would give them a mild, safe administration and be easily influenced by the South. Mr. Webster had served his turn, and the men whose cause he had advocated and whose interests he had protected cast him aside.
[Footnote 1: Mr. Curtis says a "great majority continued to divide their votes between Mr. Fillmore and Mr. Webster." The highest number reached by the combined Webster and Fillmore votes, on any one ballot, was 162, three more than was received on the last ballot by General Scott, who, Mr. Curtis correctly says, obtained only a "few votes more than the necessary majority."]
The loss of the nomination was a bitter disappointment to Mr. Webster. It was the fashion in certain quarters to declare that it killed him, but this was manifestly absurd. The most that can be said in this respect was, that the excitement and depression caused by his defeat preyed upon his mind and thereby facilitated the inroads of disease, while it added to the clouds which darkened round him in those last days. But his course of action after the convention cannot be pa.s.sed over without comment. He refused to give his adhesion to General Scott"s nomination, and he advised his friends to vote for Mr. Pierce, because the Whigs were divided, while the Democrats were unanimously determined to resist all attempts to renew the slavery agitation. This course was absolutely indefensible. If the Whig party was so divided on the slavery question that Mr. Webster could not support their nominee, then he had no business to seek a nomination at their hands, for they were as much divided before the convention as afterwards. He chose to come before that convention, knowing perfectly well the divisions of the party, and that the nomination might fall to General Scott. He saw fit to play the game, and was in honor bound to abide by the rules. He had no right to say "it is heads I win, and tails you lose." If he had been nominated he would have indignantly and justly denounced a refusal on the part of General Scott and his friends to support him. It is the merest sophistry to say that Mr. Webster was too great a man to be bound by party usages, and that he owed it to himself to rise above them, and refuse his support to a poor nomination and to a wrangling party. If Mr. Webster could no longer act with the Whigs, then his name had no business in that convention at Baltimore, for the conditions were the same before its meeting as afterward. Great man as he was, he was not too great to behave honorably; and his refusal to support Scott, after having been his rival for a nomination at the hands of their common party, was neither honorable nor just. If Mr. Webster had decided to leave the Whigs and act independently, he was in honor bound to do so before the Baltimore convention a.s.sembled, or to have warned the delegates that such was his intention in the event of General Scott"s nomination. He had no right to stand the hazard of the die, and then refuse to abide by the result. The Whig party, in its best estate, was not calculated to excite a very warm enthusiasm in the breast of a dispa.s.sionate posterity, and it is perfectly true that it was on the eve of ruin in 1852. But it appeared better then, in the point of self-respect, than four years before. In 1848 the Whigs nominated a successful soldier conspicuous only for his availability and without knowing to what party he belonged. They maintained absolute silence on the great question of the extension of slavery, and carried on their campaign on the personal popularity of their candidate. Mr. Webster was righteously disgusted at their candidate and their negative att.i.tude.
He could justly and properly have left them on a question of principle; but he swallowed the nomination, "not fit to be made," and gave to his party a decided and public support. In 1852 the Whigs nominated another successful soldier, who was known to be a Whig, and who had been a candidate for their nomination before. In their platform they formally adopted the essential principle demanded by Mr. Webster, and declared their adhesion to the compromise measures. If there was disaffection in regard to this declaration of 1852, there was disaffection also about the silence of 1848.
In the former case, Mr. Webster adhered to the nomination; in the latter, he rejected it. In 1848 he might still hope to be President through a Whig nomination. In 1852 he knew that, even if he lived, there would never be another chance. He gave vent to his disappointment, put no constraint upon himself, prophesied the downfall of his party, and advised his friends to vote for Franklin Pierce. It was perfectly logical, after advocating the compromise measures, to advise giving the government into the hands of a party controlled by the South. Mr. Webster would have been entirely reasonable in taking such a course before the Baltimore convention. He had no right to do so after he had sought a nomination from the Whigs, and it was a breach of faith to act as he did, to advise his friends to desert a falling party and vote for the Democratic candidate.
After the acceptance of the Department of State, Mr. Webster"s health became seriously impaired. His exertions in advocating the compromise measures, his official labors, and the increased severity of his annual hay-fever,--all contributed to debilitate him. His iron const.i.tution weakened in various ways, and especially by frequent periods of intense mental exertion, to which were superadded the excitement and nervous strain inseparable from his career, was beginning to give way. Slowly but surely he lost ground. His spirits began to lose their elasticity, and he rarely spoke without a tinge of deep sadness being apparent in all he said. In May, 1852, while driving near Marshfield, he was thrown from his carriage with much violence, injuring his wrists, and receiving other severe contusions. The shock was very great, and undoubtedly accelerated the progress of the fatal organic disease which was sapping his life. This physical injury was followed by the keen disappointment of his defeat at Baltimore, which preyed upon his heart and mind. During the summer of 1852 his health gave way more rapidly. He longed to resign, but Mr. Fillmore insisted on his retaining his office. In July he came to Boston, where he was welcomed by a great public meeting, and hailed with enthusiastic acclamations, which did much to soothe his wounded feelings. He still continued to transact the business of his department, and in August went to Washington, where he remained until the 8th of September, when he returned to Marshfield. On the 20th he went to Boston, for the last time, to consult his physician. He appeared at a friend"s house, one evening, for a few moments, and all who then saw him were shocked at the look of illness and suffering in his face. It was his last visit. He went back to Marshfield the next day, never to return. He now failed rapidly. His nights were sleepless, and there were scarcely any intervals of ease or improvement.
The decline was steady and sure, and as October wore away the end drew near. Mr. Webster faced it with courage, cheerfulness, and dignity, in a religious and trusting spirit, with a touch of the personal pride which was part of his nature. He remained perfectly conscious and clear in his mind almost to the very last moment, bearing his sufferings with perfect fort.i.tude, and exhibiting the tenderest affection toward the wife and son and friends who watched over him. On the evening of October 23 it became apparent that he was sinking, but his one wish seemed to be that he might be conscious when he was actually dying. After midnight he roused from an uneasy sleep, struggled for consciousness, and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, "I still live."
These were his last words. Shortly after three o"clock the labored breathing ceased, and all was over.
A hush fell upon the country as the news of his death sped over the land. A great gap seemed to have been made in the existence of every one. Men remembered the grandeur of his form and the splendor of his intellect, and felt as if one of the pillars of the state had fallen. The profound grief and deep sense of loss produced by his death were the highest tributes and the most convincing proofs of his greatness.
In accordance with his wishes, all public forms and ceremonies were dispensed with. The funeral took place at his home on Friday, October 29.
Thousands flocked to Marshfield to do honor to his memory, and to look for the last time at that n.o.ble form. It was one of those beautiful days of the New England autumn, when the sun is slightly veiled, and a delicate haze hangs over the sea, shining with a tender silvery light. There is a sense of infinite rest and peace on such a day which seems to shut out the noise of the busy world and breathe the spirit of unbroken calm. As the crowds poured in through the gates of the farm, they saw before them on the lawn, resting upon a low mound of flowers, the majestic form, as impressive in the repose of death as it had been in the fullness of life and strength.
There was a wonderful fitness in it all. The vault of heaven and the s.p.a.cious earth seemed in their large simplicity the true place for such a man to lie in state. There was a brief and simple service at the house, and then the body was borne on the shoulders of Marshfield farmers, and laid in the little graveyard which already held the wife and children who had gone before, and where could be heard the eternal murmur of the sea.
In May, 1852, Mr. Webster said to Professor Silliman: "I have given my life to law and politics. Law is uncertain and politics are utterly vain." It is a sad commentary for such a man to have made on such a career, but it fitly represents Mr. Webster"s feelings as the end of life approached. His last years were not his most fortunate, and still less his best years. Domestic sorrows had been the prelude to a change of policy, which had aroused a bitter opposition, and to the pangs of disappointed ambition. A sense of mistake and failure hung heavily upon his spirits, and the cry of "vanity, vanity, all is vanity," came readily to his lips. There is an infinite pathos in those melancholy words which have just been quoted. The sun of life, which had shone so splendidly at its meridian, was setting amid clouds. The darkness which overspread him came from the action of the 7th of March, and the conflict which it had caused. If there were failure and mistake they were there. The presidency could add nothing, its loss could take away nothing from the fame of Daniel Webster. He longed for it eagerly; he had sacrificed much to his desire for it; his disappointment was keen and bitter at not receiving what seemed to him the fit crown of his great public career. But this grief was purely personal, and will not be shared by posterity, who feel only the errors of those last years coming after so much glory, and who care very little for the defeat of the ambition which went with them.
Those last two years awakened such fierce disputes, and had such an absorbing interest, that they have tended to overshadow the half century of distinction and achievement which preceded them. Failure and disappointment on the part of such a man as Webster seem so great, that they too easily dwarf everything else, and hide from us a just and well proportioned view of the whole career. Mr. Webster"s success had, in truth, been brilliant, hardly equalled in measure or duration by that of any other eminent man in our history. For thirty years he had stood at the head of the bar and of the Senate, the first lawyer and the first statesman of the United States.
This is a long tenure of power for one man in two distinct departments. It would be remarkable anywhere. It is especially so in a democracy. This great success Mr. Webster owed solely to his intellectual power supplemented by great physical gifts. No man ever was born into the world better formed by nature for the career of an orator and statesman. He had everything to compel the admiration and submission of his fellow-men:--
"The front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New-lighted on a heaven-kissing hill; A combination and a form indeed, Where every G.o.d did seem to set his seal, To give the world a.s.surance of a man."
Hamlet"s words are a perfect picture of Mr. Webster"s outer man, and we have but to add to the description a voice of singular beauty and power with the tone and compa.s.s of an organ. The look of his face and the sound of his voice were in themselves as eloquent as anything Mr. Webster ever uttered.
But the imposing presence was only the outward sign of the man. Within was a ma.s.sive and powerful intellect, not creative or ingenious, but with a wonderful vigor of grasp, capacious, penetrating, far-reaching. Mr.
Webster"s strongest and most characteristic mental qualities were weight and force. He was peculiarly fitted to deal with large subjects in a large way. He was by temperament extremely conservative. There was nothing of the reformer or the zealot about him. He could maintain or construct where other men had built; he could not lay new foundations or invent. We see this curiously exemplified in his feeling toward Hamilton and Madison. He admired them both, and to the former he paid a compliment which has become a familiar quotation. But Hamilton"s bold, aggressive genius, his audacity, fertility, and resource, did not appeal to Mr. Webster as did the prudence, the constructive wisdom, and the safe conservatism of the gentle Madison, whom he never wearied of praising. The same description may be given of his imagination, which was warm, vigorous, and keen, but not poetic. He used it well, it never led him astray, and was the secret of his most conspicuous oratorical triumphs.
He had great natural pride and a strong sense of personal dignity, which made him always impressive, but apparently cold, and sometimes solemn in public. In his later years this solemnity degenerated occasionally into pomposity, to which it is always perilously near. At no time in his life was he quick or excitable. He was indolent and dreamy, working always under pressure, and then at a high rate of speed. This indolence increased as he grew older; he would then postpone longer and labor more intensely to make up the lost time than in his earlier days. When he was quiescent, he seemed stern, cold, and latterly rather heavy, and some outer incentive was needed to rouse his intellect or touch his heart. Once stirred, he blazed forth, and, when fairly engaged, with his intellect in full play, he was as grand and effective in his eloquence as it is given to human nature to be. In the less exciting occupations of public life, as, for instance, in foreign negotiations, he showed the same grip upon his subject, the same capacity and judgment as in his speeches, and a mingling of tact and dignity which proved the greatest fitness for the conduct of the gravest public affairs.
As a statesman Mr. Webster was not an "opportunist," as it is the fashion to call those who live politically from day to day, dealing with each question as it arises, and exhibiting often the greatest skill and talent.
Still less was he a statesman of the type of Charles Fox, who preached to the deaf ears of one generation great principles which became accepted truisms in the next. Mr. Webster stands between the two cla.s.ses. He viewed the present with a strong perception of the future, and shaped his policy not merely for the daily exigency, but with a keen eye to subsequent effects. At the same time he never put forward and defended single-handed a great principle or idea which, neglected then, was gradually to win its way and reign supreme among a succeeding generation.
His speeches have a heat and glow which we can still feel, and a depth and reality of thought which have secured them a place in literature. He had not a fiery nature, although there is often so much warmth in what he said.
He was neither high tempered nor quick to anger, but he could be fierce, and, when adulation had warped him in those later years, he was capable of striking ugly blows which sometimes wounded friends as well as enemies.
There remains one marked quality to be noticed in Mr. Webster, which was of immense negative service to him. This was his sense of humor. Mr. Nichol, in his recent history of American literature, speaks of Mr. Webster as deficient in this respect. Either the critic himself is deficient in humor or he has studied only Webster"s collected works, which give no indication of the real humor in the man. That Mr. Webster was not a humorist is unquestionably true, and although he used a sarcasm which made his opponents seem absurd and even ridiculous at times, and in his more unstudied efforts would provoke mirth by some happy and playful allusion, some felicitous quotation or ingenious ant.i.thesis, he was too stately in every essential respect ever to seek to make mere fun or to excite the laughter of his hearers by deliberate exertions and with malice aforethought. He had, nevertheless, a real and genuine sense of humor. We can see it in his letters, and it comes out in a thousand ways in the details and incidents of his private life. When he had thrown aside the cares of professional or public business, he revelled in hearty, boisterous fun, and he had that sanest of qualities, an honest, boyish love of pure nonsense. He delighted in a good story and dearly loved a joke, although no jester himself. This sense of humor and appreciation of the ridiculous, although they give no color to his published works, where, indeed, they would have been out of place, improved his judgment, smoothed his path through the world, and saved him from those blunders in taste and those follies in action which are ever the pitfalls for men with the fervid, oratorical temperament.
This sense of humor gave, also, a great charm to his conversation and to all social intercourse with him. He was a good, but never, so far as can be judged from tradition, an overbearing talker. He never appears to have crushed opposition in conversation, nor to have indulged in monologue, which is so apt to be the foible of famous and successful men who have a solemn sense of their own dignity and importance. What Lord Melbourne said of the great Whig historian, "that he wished he was as sure of anything as Tom Macaulay was of everything," could not be applied to Mr. Webster. He owed his freedom from such a weakness partly, no doubt, to his natural indolence, but still more to the fact that he was not only no pedant, but not even a very learned man. He knew no Greek, but was familiar with Latin.
His quotations and allusions were chiefly drawn from Shakespeare, Milton, Homer, and the Bible, where he found what most appealed to him--simplicity and grandeur of thought and diction. At the same time, he was a great reader, and possessed wide information on a vast variety of subjects, which a clear and retentive memory put always at his command. The result of all this was that he was a most charming and entertaining companion.
These attractions were heightened by his large nature and strong animal spirits. He loved outdoor life. He was a keen sportsman and skilful fisherman. In all these ways he was healthy and manly, without any tinge of the mere student or public official. He loved everything that was large.
His soul expanded in the free air and beneath the blue sky. All natural scenery appealed to him,--Niagara, the mountains, the rolling prairie, the great rivers,--but he found most contentment beside the limitless sea, amid brown marshes and sand-dunes, where the sense of infinite s.p.a.ce is strongest. It was the same in regard to animals. He cared but little for horses or dogs, but he rejoiced in great herds of cattle, and especially in fine oxen, the embodiment of slow and ma.s.sive strength. In England the things which chiefly appealed to him were the Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Smithfield cattle market, and English agriculture. So it was always and everywhere. He loved mountains and great trees, wide horizons, the ocean, the western plains, and the giant monuments of literature and art.
He rejoiced in his strength and the overflowing animal vigor that was in him. He was so big and so strong, so large in every way, that people sank into repose in his presence, and felt rest and confidence in the mere fact of his existence. He came to be regarded as an inst.i.tution, and when he died men paused with a sense of helplessness, and wondered how the country would get on without him. To have filled so large a s.p.a.ce in a country so vast, and in a great, hurrying, and pushing democracy, implies a personality of a most uncommon kind.
He was, too, something more than a charming companion in private life. He was generous, liberal, hospitable, and deeply affectionate. He was adored in his home, and deeply loved his children, who were torn from him, one after another. His sorrow, like his joy, was intense and full of force. He had many devoted friends, and a still greater body of unhesitating followers. To the former he showed, through nearly all his life, the warm affection which was natural to him. It was not until adulation and flattery had deeply injured him, and the frustrated ambition for the presidency had poisoned both heart and mind, that he became dictatorial and overbearing.
Not till then did he quarrel with those who had served and followed him, as when he slighted Mr. Lawrence for expressing independent opinions, and refused to do justice to the memory of Story because it might impair his own glories. They do not present a pleasant picture, these quarrels with friends, but they were part of the deterioration of the last years, and they furnish in a certain way the key to his failure to attain the presidency. The country was proud of Mr. Webster; proud of his intellect, his eloquence, his fame. He was the idol of the capitalists, the merchants, the lawyers, the clergy, the educated men of all cla.s.ses in the East. The politicians dreaded and feared him because he was so great, and so little in sympathy with them, but his real weakness was with the ma.s.ses of the people. He was not popular in the true sense of the word. For years the Whig party and Henry Clay were almost synonymous terms, but this could never be said of Mr. Webster. His following was strong in quality, but weak numerically. Clay touched the popular heart. Webster never did. The people were proud of him, wondered at him, were awed by him, but they did not love him, and that was the reason he was never President, for he was too great to succeed to the high office, as many men have, by happy or unhappy accident. There was also another feeling which is suggested by the differences with some of his closest friends. There was a lurking distrust of Mr. Webster"s sincerity. We can see it plainly in the correspondence of the Western Whigs, who were not, perhaps, wholly impartial. But it existed, nevertheless. There was a vague, ill-defined feeling of doubt in the public mind; a suspicion that the spirit of the advocate was the ruling spirit in Mr. Webster, and that he did not believe with absolute and fervent faith in one side of any question. There was just enough correctness, just a sufficient grain of truth in this idea, when united with the coldness and dignity of his manner and with his greatness itself, to render impossible that popularity which, to be real and lasting in a democracy, must come from the heart and not from the head of the people, which must be instinctive and emotional, and not the offspring of reason.
There is no occasion to discuss, or hold up to reprobation, Mr. Webster"s failings. He was a splendid animal as well as a great man, and he had strong pa.s.sions and appet.i.tes, which he indulged at times to the detriment of his health and reputation. These errors may be mostly fitly consigned to silence. But there was one failing which cannot be pa.s.sed over in this way.
This was in regard to money. His indifference to debt was perceptible in his youth, and for many years showed no sign of growth. But in his later years it increased with terrible rapidity. He earned twenty thousand a year when he first came to Boston,--a very great income for those days. His public career interfered, of course, with his law practice, but there never was a period when he could not, with reasonable economy, have laid up something at the end of every year, and gradually ama.s.sed a fortune. But he not only never saved, he lived habitually beyond his means. He did not become poor by his devotion to the public service, but by his own extravagance. He loved to spend money and to live well. He had a fine library and handsome plate; he bought fancy cattle; he kept open house, and indulged in that most expensive of all luxuries, "gentleman-farming." He never stinted himself in any way, and he gave away money with reckless generosity and heedless profusion, often not stopping to inquire who the recipient of his bounty might be. The result was debt; then subscriptions among his friends to pay his debts; then a fresh start and more debts, and more subscriptions and funds for his benefit, and gifts of money for his table, and checks or notes for several thousand dollars in token of admiration of the 7th of March speech.[1] This was, of course, utterly wrong and demoralizing, but Mr. Webster came, after a time, to look upon such transactions as natural and proper. In the Ingersoll debate, Mr.
Yancey accused him of being in the pay of the New England manufacturers, and his biographer has replied to the charge at length. That Mr. Webster was in the pay of the manufacturers in the sense that they hired him, and bade him do certain things, is absurd. That he was maintained and supported in a large degree by New England manufacturers and capitalists cannot be questioned; but his att.i.tude toward them was not that of servant and dependent. He seems to have regarded the merchants and bankers of State Street very much as a feudal baron regarded his peasantry. It was their privilege and duty to support him, and he repaid them with an occasional magnificent compliment. The result was that he lived in debt and died insolvent, and this was not the position which such a man as Daniel Webster should have occupied.
[Footnote 1: The story of the gift of ten thousand dollars in token of admiration of the 7th of March speech, referred to by Dr. Von Holst (_Const. Hist. of the United States_) may be found in a volume ent.i.tled, _In Memoriam, B. Ogle Tayloe_, p. 109, and is as follows: "My opulent and munificent friend and neighbor Mr. William W. Corcoran," says Mr. Tayloe, "after the perusal of Webster"s celebrated March speech in defence of the Const.i.tution and of Southern rights, inclosed to Mrs. Webster her husband"s note for ten thousand dollars given him for a loan to that amount. Mr.
Webster met Mr. Corcoran the same evening, at the President"s, and thanked him for the "princely favor." Next day he addressed to Mr. Corcoran a letter of thanks which I read at Mr. Corcoran"s request." This version is substantially correct. The morning of March 8 Mr. Corcoran inclosed with a letter of congratulation some notes of Mr. Webster"s amounting to some six thousand dollars. Reflecting that this was not a very solid tribute, he opened his letter and put in a check for a thousand dollars, and sent the notes and the check to Mr. Webster, who wrote him a letter expressing his grat.i.tude, which Mr. Tayloe doubtless saw, and which is still in existence.