Five years after the Dartmouth College decision, Mr. Webster made his famous argument in the case of Gibbons vs. Ogden. The case was called suddenly, and Mr. Webster prepared his argument in a single night of intense labor. The facts were all before him, but he showed a readiness in arrangement only equalled by its force. The question was whether the State of New York had a right under the Const.i.tution to grant a monopoly of steam navigation in its waters to Fulton and Livingston. Mr. Webster contended that the acts making such a grant were unconst.i.tutional, because the power of Congress to regulate commerce was, within certain limitations, exclusive. He won his cause, and the decision, from its importance, probably enhanced the contemporary estimate of his effort. The argument was badly reported, but it shows all its author"s strongest qualities of close reasoning and effective statement. The point in issue was neither difficult nor obscure, and afforded no opportunity for a display of learning. It was purely a matter of const.i.tutional interpretation, and could be discussed chiefly in a historical manner and from the standpoint of public interests.
This was particularly fitted to Mr. Webster"s cast of mind, and he did his subject full justice. It was pure argument on general principles. Mr.
Webster does not reach that point of intense clearness and condensation which characterized Marshall and Hamilton, in whose writings we are fascinated by the beauty of the intellectual display, and are held fast by each succeeding line, which always comes charged with fresh meaning.
Nevertheless, Mr. Webster touches a very high point in this most difficult form of argument, and the impressiveness of his manner and voice carried all that he said to its mark with a direct force in which he stood unrivalled.
In Ogden v. Saunders, heard in 1827, Mr. Webster argued that the clause prohibiting state laws impairing the obligation of contracts covered future as well as past contracts. He defended his position with astonishing ability, but the court very correctly decided against him. The same qualities which appear in these cases are shown in the others of a like nature, which were conspicuous among the mult.i.tude with which he was intrusted. We find them also in cases involving purely legal questions, such as the Bank of the United States v. Primrose, and The Providence Railroad Co. v. The City of Boston, accompanied always with that ready command of learning which an extraordinary memory made easy. There seemed to be no diminution of Mr. Webster"s great powers in this field as he advanced in years. In the Rhode Island case and in the Pa.s.senger Tax cases, argued when he was sixty-six years old, he rose to the same high plane of clear, impressive, effective reasoning as when he defended his Alma Mater.
Two causes, however, demand more than a pa.s.sing mention,--the Girard will case and the Rhode Island case. The former involved no const.i.tutional points. The suit was brought to break the will of Stephen Girard, and the question was whether the bequest to found a college could be construed to be a charitable devise. On this question Mr. Webster had a weak case in point of law, but he readily detected a method by which he could go boldly outside the law, as he had done to a certain degree in the Dartmouth College case, and subst.i.tute for argument an eloquent and impa.s.sioned appeal to emotion and prejudice. Girard was a free-thinker, and he provided in his will that no priest or minister of any denomination should be admitted to his college. a.s.suming that this excluded all religious teaching, Mr. Webster then laid down the proposition that no bequest or gift could be charitable which excluded Christian teaching. In other words, he contended that there was no charity except Christian charity, which, the poet a.s.sures us, is so rare. At this day such a theory would hardly be gravely propounded by any one. But Mr. Webster, on the ground that Girard"s bequest was derogatory to Christianity, p.r.o.nounced a very fine discourse defending and eulogizing, with much eloquence, the Christian religion. The speech produced a great effect. One is inclined to think that it was the cause of the court"s evading the question raised by Mr. Webster, and sustaining the will, a result they were bound to reach in any event, on other grounds. The speech certainly produced a great sensation, and was much admired, especially by the clergy, who caused it to be printed and widely distributed. It did not impress lawyers quite so favorably, and we find Judge Story writing to Chancellor Kent that "Webster did his best for the other side, but it seems to me altogether an address to the prejudices of the clergy." The subject, in certain ways, had a deep attraction for Mr.
Webster. His imagination was excited by the splendid history of the Church, and his conservatism was deeply stirred by a system which, whether in the guise of the Romish hierarchy, as the Church of England, or in the form of powerful dissenting sects, was, as a whole, imposing by its age, its influence, and its moral grandeur. Moreover, it was one of the great established bulwarks of well-ordered and civilized society. All this appealed strongly to Mr. Webster, and he made the most of his opportunity and of his shrewdly-chosen ground. Yet the speech on the Girard will is not one of his best efforts. It has not the subdued but intense fire which glowed so splendidly in his great speeches in the Senate. It lacked the stately pathos which came always when Mr. Webster was deeply moved. It was delivered in 1844, and was slightly tinged with the pompousness which manifested itself in his late years, and especially on religious topics. No man has a right to question the religious sincerity of another, unless upon evidence so full and clear that, in such cases, it is rarely to be found.
There is certainly no cause for doubt in Mr. Webster"s case. He was both sincere and honest in religion, and had a real and submissive faith. But he accepted his religion as one of the great facts and proprieties of life. He did not reach his religious convictions after much burning questioning and many bitter experiences. In this he did not differ from most men of this age, and it only amounts to saying that Mr. Webster did not have a deeply religious temperament. He did not have the ardent proselyting spirit which is the surest indication of a profoundly religious nature; the spirit of the Saracen Emir crying, "Forward! Paradise is under the shadow of our swords." When, therefore, he turned his n.o.ble powers to a defence of religion, he did not speak with that impa.s.sioned fervor which, coming from the depths of a man"s heart, savors of inspiration and seems essential to the highest religious eloquence. He believed thoroughly every word he uttered, but he did not feel it, and in things spiritual the heart must be enlisted as well as the head. It was wittily said of a well-known anti-slavery leader, that had he lived in the Middle Ages he would have gone to the stake for a principle, under a misapprehension as to the facts.
Mr. Webster not only could never have misapprehended facts, but, if he had flourished in the Middle Ages he would have been a stanch and honest supporter of the strongest government and of the dominant church. Perhaps this defines his religious character as well as anything, and explains why the argument in the Girard will case, fine as it was, did not reach the elevation and force which he so often displayed on other themes.
The Rhode Island case grew out of the troubles known at that period as Dorr"s rebellion. It involved a discussion not only of the const.i.tutional provisions for suppressing insurrections and securing to every State a republican form of government, but also of the general history and theory of the American governments, both state and national. There was thus offered to Mr. Webster that full scope and large field in which he delighted, and which were always peculiarly favorable to his talents. His argument was purely const.i.tutional, and although not so closely reasoned, perhaps, as some of his earlier efforts, is, on the whole, as fine a specimen as we have of his intellectual power as a const.i.tutional lawyer at the bar of the highest national tribunal. Mr. Webster did not often transcend the proper limits of purely legal discussion in the courts, and yet even when the question was wholly legal, the court-room would be crowded by ladies as well as gentlemen, to hear him speak. It was so at the hearing of the Girard suit; and during the strictly legal arguments in the Charles River Bridge case, the court-room, Judge Story says, was filled with a brilliant audience, including many ladies, and he adds that "Webster"s closing reply was in his best manner, but with a little too much _fierte_ here and there." The ability to attract such audiences gives an idea of the impressiveness of his manner and of the beauty of his voice and delivery better than anything else, for these qualities alone could have drawn the general public and held their attention to the cold and dry discussion of laws and const.i.tutions.
There is a little anecdote told by Mr. Curtis in connection with this Rhode Island case, which ill.u.s.trates very well two striking qualities in Mr.
Webster as a lawyer. The counsel in the court below had been a.s.sisted by a clever young lawyer named Bosworth, who had elaborated a point which he thought very important, but which his seniors rejected. Mr. Bosworth was sent to Washington to instruct Mr. Webster as to the cause, and, after he had gone through the case, Mr. Webster asked if that was all. Mr. Bosworth modestly replied that there was another view of his own which his seniors had rejected, and then stated it briefly. When he concluded, Mr. Webster started up and exclaimed, "Mr. Bosworth, by the blood of all the Bosworths who fell on Bosworth field, that is _the_ point of the case. Let it be included in the brief by all means." This is highly characteristic of one of Mr. Webster"s strongest attributes. He always saw with an unerring glance "_the_ point" of a case or a debate. A great surgeon will detect the precise spot where the knife should enter when disease hides it from other eyes, and often with apparent carelessness will make the necessary incision at the exact place when a deflection of a hair"s breadth or a tremor of the hand would bring death to the patient. Mr. Webster had the same intellectual dexterity, the mingled result of nature and art. As the tiger is said to have a sure instinct for the throat of his victim, so Mr.
Webster always seized on the vital point of a question. Other men would debate and argue for days, perhaps, and then Mr. Webster would take up the matter, and grasp at once the central and essential element which had been there all along, pushed hither and thither, but which had escaped all eyes but his own. He had preeminently
"The calm eye that seeks "Midst all the huddling silver little worth The one thin piece that comes, pure gold."
The anecdote further ill.u.s.trates the use which Mr. Webster made of the ideas of other people. He did not say to Mr. Bosworth, here is the true point of the case, but he saw that something was wanting, and asked the young lawyer what it was. The moment the proposition was stated he recognized its value and importance at a glance. He might and probably would have discovered it for himself, but his instinct was to get it from some one else.
It is one of the familiar attributes of great intellectual power to be able to select subordinates wisely; to use other people and other people"s labor and thought to the best advantage, and to have as much as possible done for one by others. This power of a.s.similation Mr. Webster had to a marked degree. There is no depreciation in saying that he took much from others, for it is a capacity characteristic of the strongest minds, and so long as the debt is acknowledged, such a faculty is a subject for praise, not criticism. But when the recipient becomes unwilling to admit the obligation which is no detraction to himself, and without which the giver is poor indeed, the case is altered. In his earliest days Mr. Webster used to draw on one Parker Noyes, a mousing, learned New Hampshire lawyer, and freely acknowledged the debt. In the Dartmouth College case, as has been seen, he over and over again gave simply and generously all the credit for the learning and the points of the brief to Mason and Smith, and yet the glory of the case has rested with Mr. Webster and always will. He gained by his frank honesty and did not lose a whit. But in his latter days, when his sense of justice had grown somewhat blunted and his nature was perverted by the unmeasured adulation of the little immediate circle which then hung about him, he ceased to admit his obligations as in his earlier and better years. From no one did Mr. Webster receive so much hearty and generous advice and a.s.sistance as from Judge Story, whose calm judgment and wealth of learning were always at his disposal. They were given not only in questions of law, but in regard to the Crimes Act, the Judiciary Act, and the Ashburton treaty. After Judge Story"s death, Mr. Webster not only declined to allow the publication by the judge"s son and biographer of Story"s letters to himself, but he refused to permit even the publication of extracts from his own letters, intended merely to show the nature of the services rendered to him by Story. A cordial a.s.sent would have enhanced the reputation of both. The refusal is a blot on the intellectual greatness of the one and a source of bitterness to the descendants and admirers of the other. It is to be regretted that the extraordinary ability which Mr.
Webster always showed in grasping and a.s.similating ma.s.ses of theories and facts, and in drawing from them what was best, should ever have been sullied by a want of grat.i.tude which, properly and freely rendered, would have made the l.u.s.tre of his own fame shine still more brightly.
A close study of Mr. Webster"s legal career, in the light of contemporary reputation and of the best examples of his work, leads to certain quite obvious conclusions. He had not a strongly original or creative legal mind.
This was chiefly due to nature, but in some measure to a dislike to the slow processes of investigation and inquiry which were always distasteful to him, although he was entirely capable of intense and protracted exertion. He cannot, therefore, be ranked with the ill.u.s.trious few, among whom we count Mansfield and Marshall as the most brilliant examples, who not only declared what the law was, but who made it. Mr. Webster"s powers were not of this cla.s.s, but, except in these highest and rarest qualities, he stands in the front rank of the lawyers of his country and his age.
Without extraordinary profundity of thought or depth of learning, he had a wide, sure, and ready knowledge both of principles and cases. Add to this quick apprehension, unerring sagacity for vital and essential points, a perfect sense of proportion, an almost unequalled power of statement, backed by reasoning at once close and lucid, and we may fairly say that Mr.
Webster, who possessed all these qualities, need fear comparison with but very few among the great lawyers of that period either at home or abroad.
CHAPTER IV.
THE Ma.s.sACHUSETTS CONVENTION AND THE PLYMOUTH ORATION.
The conduct of the Dartmouth College case, and its result, at once raised Mr. Webster to a position at the bar second only to that held by Mr.
Pinkney. He was now constantly occupied by most important and lucrative engagements, but in 1820 he was called upon to take a leading part in a great public work which demanded the exertion of all his talents as statesman, lawyer, and debater. The lapse of time and the setting off of the Maine district as a State had made a convention necessary, in order to revise the Const.i.tution of Ma.s.sachusetts. This involved the direct resort to the people, the source of all power, which is only required to effect a change in the fundamental law of the State. On these rare occasions it has been the honored custom in Ma.s.sachusetts to lay aside all the qualifications attaching to ordinary legislatures and to choose the best men, without regard to party, public office, or domicile, for the performance of this important work. No better or abler body could have been a.s.sembled for this purpose than that which met in convention at Boston in November, 1820. Among these distinguished men were John Adams, then in his eighty-fifth year, and one of the framers of the original Const.i.tution of 1780, Chief Justice Parker, of the Supreme Bench, the Federal judges, and many of the leaders at the bar and in business. The two most conspicuous men in the convention, however, were Joseph Story and Daniel Webster, who bore the burden in every discussion; and there were three subjects, upon which Mr. Webster spoke at length, that deserve more than a pa.s.sing allusion.
Questions of party have, as a rule, found but little place in the const.i.tutional a.s.semblies of Ma.s.sachusetts. This was peculiarly the case in 1820, when the old political divisions were dying out, and new ones had not yet been formed. At the same time widely opposite views found expression in the convention. The movement toward thorough and complete democracy was gathering headway, and directing its force against many of the old colonial traditions and habits of government embodied in the existing Const.i.tution.
That portion of the delegates which favored certain radical changes was confronted and stoutly opposed by those who, on the whole, inclined to make as few alterations as possible, and desired to keep things about as they were. Mr. Webster, as was natural, was the leader of the conservative party, and his course in this convention is an excellent ill.u.s.tration of this marked trait in his disposition and character.
One of the important questions concerned the abolition of the profession of Christian faith as a qualification for holding office. On this point the line of argument pursued by Mr. Webster is extremely characteristic.
Although an unvarying conservative throughout his life, he was incapable of bigotry, or of narrow and illiberal views. At the same time the process by which he reached his opinion in favor of removing the religious test shows more clearly than even ultra-conservatism could, how free he was from any touch of the reforming or innovating spirit. He did not urge that, on general principles, religious tests were wrong, that they were relics of the past and in hopeless conflict with the fundamental doctrines of American liberty and democracy. On the contrary, he implied that a religious test was far from being of necessity an evil. He laid down the sound doctrine that qualifications for office were purely matters of expediency, and then argued that it was wise to remove the religious test because, while its principle would be practically enforced by a Christian community, it was offensive to some persons to have it engrafted on the Const.i.tution. The speech in which he set forth these views was an able and convincing one, entirely worthy of its author, and the removal of the test was carried by a large majority. It is an interesting example of the combination of steady conservatism and breadth of view which Mr. Webster always displayed. But it also brings into strong relief his aversion to radical general principles as grounds of action, and his inborn hostility to far-reaching change.
His two other important speeches in this convention have been preserved in his works, and are purely and wholly conservative in tone and spirit. The first related to the basis of representation in the Senate, whose members were then apportioned according to the amount of taxable property in the districts. This system, Mr. Webster thought, should be retained, and his speech was a most masterly discussion of the whole system of government by two Houses. He urged the necessity of a basis of representation for the upper House different from that of the lower, in order to make the former fully serve its purpose of a check and balance to the popular branch. This important point he handled in the most skilful manner, and there is no escape from his conclusion that a difference of origin in the two legislative branches of the government is essential to the full and perfect operation of the system. This difference of origin, he argued, could be obtained only by the introduction of property as a factor in the basis of representation. The weight of his speech was directed to defending the principle of a suitable representation of property, which was a subject requiring very adroit treatment. The doctrine is one which probably would not be tolerated now in any part of this country, and even in 1820, in Ma.s.sachusetts, it was a delicate matter to advocate it, for it was hostile to the general sentiment of the people. Having established his position that it was all important to make the upper branch a strong and effective check, he said that the point in issue was not whether property offered the best method of distinguishing between the two Houses, but whether it was not better than no distinction at all. This being answered affirmatively, the next question to be considered was whether property, not in the sense of personal possessions and personal power, but in a general sense, ought not to have its due influence in matters of government. He maintained the justice of this proposition by showing that our const.i.tutions rest largely on the general equality of property, which, in turn, is due to our laws of distribution. This led him into a discussion of the principles of the distribution of property. He pointed out the dangers arising in England from the growth of a few large estates, while on the other hand he predicted that the rapid and minute subdivision of property in France would change the character of the government, and, far from strengthening the crown, as was then generally prophesied, would have a directly opposite effect, by creating a large and united body of small proprietors, who would sooner or later control the country. He ill.u.s.trated, in this way, the value and importance of a general equality of property, and of steadiness in legislation affecting it. These were the reasons, he contended, for making property the basis of the check and balance furnished to our system of government by an upper House. Moreover, all property being subject to taxation for the purpose of educating the children of both rich and poor, it deserved some representation for this valuable aid to government. It is impossible, in a few lines,[1] to do justice to Mr. Webster"s argument. It exhibited a great deal of tact and ingenuity, especially in the distinction so finely drawn between property as an element of personal power and property in a general sense, and so distributed as to be a bulwark of liberty. The speech is, on this account, an interesting one, for Mr.
Webster was rarely ingenious, and hardly ever got over difficulties by fine-spun distinctions. In this instance adroitness was very necessary, and he did not hesitate to employ it. By his skilful treatment, by his ill.u.s.trations drawn from England and France, which show the accuracy and range of his mental vision in matters of politics and public economy, both at home and abroad, and with the powerful support of Judge Story, Mr.
Webster carried his point. The element of property representation in the Senate was retained, but so wholly by the ability of its advocate, that it was not long afterwards removed.
[Footnote 1: My brief statement is merely a further condensation of the excellent abstract of this speech made by Mr Curtis.]
Mr. Webster"s other important speech related to the judiciary. The Const.i.tution provided that the judges, who held office during good behavior, should be removable by the Governor on an address from the Legislature. This was considered to meet cases of incompetency or of personal misconduct, which could not be reached by impeachment. Mr. Webster desired to amend the clause so as to require a two thirds vote for the pa.s.sage of the address, and that reasons should be a.s.signed, and a hearing a.s.sured to the judge who was the subject of the proceedings. These changes were all directed to the further protection of the bench, and it was in this connection that Mr. Webster made a most admirable and effective speech on the well-worn but n.o.ble theme of judicial independence. He failed to carry conviction, however, and his amendments were all lost. The perils which he antic.i.p.ated have never arisen, and the good sense of the people of Ma.s.sachusetts has prevented the slightest abuse of what Mr. Webster rightly esteemed a dangerous power.
Mr. Webster"s continual and active exertion throughout the session of this convention brought him great applause and admiration, and showed his powers in a new light. Judge Story, with generous enthusiasm, wrote to Mr. Mason, after the convention adjourned:--
"Our friend Webster has gained a n.o.ble reputation. He was before known as a lawyer; but he has now secured the t.i.tle of an eminent and enlightened statesman. It was a glorious field for him, and he has had an ample harvest. The whole force of his great mind was brought out, and, in several speeches, he commanded universal admiration. He always led the van, and was most skilful and instantaneous in attack and retreat. He fought, as I have told him, in the "imminent deadly breach;" and all I could do was to skirmish, in aid of him, upon some of the enemy"s outposts. On the whole, I never was more proud of any display than his in my life, and I am much deceived if the well-earned popularity, so justly and so boldly acquired by him on this occasion, does not carry him, if he lives, to the presidency."
While this convention, so memorable in the career of Mr. Webster and so filled with the most absorbing labors, was in session, he achieved a still wider renown in a very different field. On the 22d of December, 1820, he delivered at Plymouth the oration which commemorated the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. The theme was a splendid one, both in the intrinsic interest of the event itself, in the character of the Pilgrims, in the vast results which had grown from their humble beginnings, and in the principles of free government, which had spread from the cabins of the exiles over the face of a continent, and had become the common heritage of a great people. We are fortunate in having a description of the orator, written at the time by a careful observer and devoted friend, Mr.
Ticknor, who says:--
"_Friday Evening._--I have run away from a great levee there is down-stairs, thronging in admiration round Mr. Webster, to tell you a little word about his oration. Yet I do not dare to trust myself about it, and I warn you beforehand that I have not the least confidence in my own opinion. His manner carried me away completely; not, I think, that I could have been so carried away if it had been a poor oration, for of that, I apprehend, there can be no fear. It _must_ have been a great, a very great performance, but whether it was so absolutely unrivalled as I imagined when I was under the immediate influence of his presence, of his tones, of his looks, I cannot be sure till I have read it, for it seems to me incredible.
"I was never so excited by public speaking before in my life. Three or four times I thought my temples would burst with the gush of blood; for, after all, you must know that I am aware it is no connected and compacted whole, but a collection of wonderful fragments of burning eloquence, to which his whole manner gave tenfold force. When I came out I was almost afraid to come near to him. It seemed to me as if he was like the mount that might not be touched and that burned with fire. I was beside myself, and am so still."
"_Sat.u.r.day._--Mr. Webster was in admirable spirits. On Thursday evening he was considerably agitated and oppressed, and yesterday morning he had not his natural look at all; but since his entire success he has been as gay and playful as a kitten. The party came in one after another, and the spirits of all were kindled brighter and brighter, and we fairly sat up till after two o"clock. I think, therefore, we may now safely boast the Plymouth expedition has gone off admirably."
Mr. Ticknor was a man of learning and scholarship, just returned from a prolonged sojourn in Europe, where he had met and conversed with all the most distinguished men of the day, both in England and on the Continent. He was not, therefore, disposed by training or recent habits to indulge a facile enthusiasm, and such deep emotion as he experienced must have been due to no ordinary cause. He was, in fact, profoundly moved because he had been listening to one of the great masters of eloquence exhibiting, for the first time, his full powers in a branch of the art much more cultivated in America by distinguished men of all professions than is the custom elsewhere. The Plymouth oration belongs to what, for lack of a better name, we must call occasional oratory. This form of address, taking an anniversary, a great historical event or character, a celebration, or occasion of any sort as a starting point, permits either a close adherence to the original text or the widest lat.i.tude of treatment. The field is a broad and inviting one. That it promises an easy success is shown by the innumerable productions of this kind which, for many years, have been showered upon the country. That the promise is fallacious is proved by the very small number among the countless host of such addresses which survive the moment of their utterance. The facility of saying something is counterbalanced by the difficulty of saying anything worth hearing. The temptation to stray and to mistake plat.i.tude for originality is almost always fatal.
Mr. Webster was better fitted than any man who has ever lived in this country for the perilous task of occasional oratory. The freedom of movement which renders most speeches of this cla.s.s diluted and commonplace was exactly what he needed. He required abundant intellectual room for a proper display of his powers, and he had the rare quality of being able to range over vast s.p.a.ces of time and thought without becoming attenuated in what he said. Soaring easily, with a powerful sweep he returned again to earth without jar or shock. He had dignity and grandeur of thought, expression, and manner, and a great subject never became small by his treatment of it. He had, too, a fine historical imagination, and could breathe life and pa.s.sion into the dead events of the past.
Mr. Ticknor speaks of the Plymouth oration as impressing him as a series of eloquent fragments. The impression was perfectly correct. Mr. Webster touched on the historical event, on the character of the Pilgrims, on the growth and future of the country, on liberty and const.i.tutional principles, on education, and on human slavery. This was entirely proper to such an address. The difficulty lay in doing it well, and Mr. Webster did it as perfectly as it ever has been done. The thoughts were fine, and were expressed in simple and beautiful words. The delivery was grand and impressive, and the presentation of each successive theme glowed with subdued fire. There was no straining after mere rhetorical effect, but an artistic treatment of a succession of great subjects in a general and yet vivid and picturesque fashion. The emotion produced by the Plymouth oration was akin to that of listening to the strains of music issuing from a full-toned organ. Those who heard it did not seek to gratify their reason or look for conviction to be brought to their understanding. It did not appeal to the logical faculties or to the pa.s.sions, which are roused by the keen contests of parliamentary debate. It was the divine gift of speech, the greatest instrument given to man, used with surpa.s.sing talent, and the joy and pleasure which it brought were those which come from listening to the song of a great singer, or looking upon the picture of a great artist.
The Plymouth oration, which was at once printed and published, was received with a universal burst of applause. It had more literary success than anything which had at that time appeared, except from the pen of Washington Irving. The public, without stopping to a.n.a.lyze their own feelings, or the oration itself, recognized at once that a new genius had come before them, a man endowed with the n.o.ble gift of eloquence, and capable by the exercise of his talents of moving and inspiring great ma.s.ses of his fellow-men. Mr.
Webster was then of an age to feel fully the glow of a great success, both at the moment and when the cooler and more critical approbation came. He was fresh and young, a strong man rejoicing to run the race. Mr. Ticknor says, in speaking of the oration:--
"The pa.s.sage at the end, where, spreading his arms as if to embrace them, he welcomed future generations to the great inheritance which we have enjoyed, was spoken with the most attractive sweetness and that peculiar smile which in him was always so charming. The effect of the whole was very great. As soon as he got home to our lodgings, all the princ.i.p.al people then in Plymouth crowded about him. He was full of animation, and radiant with happiness. But there was something about him very grand and imposing at the same time. I never saw him at any time when he seemed to me to be more conscious of his own powers, or to have a more true and natural enjoyment from their possession."
Amid all the applause and glory, there was one letter of congratulation and acknowledgment which must have given Mr. Webster more pleasure than anything else, It came from John Adams, who never did anything by halves.
Whether he praised or condemned, he did it heartily and ardently, and such an oration on New England went straight to the heart of the eager, warm-blooded old patriot. His commendation, too, was worth having, for he spoke as one having authority. John Adams had been one of the eloquent men and the most forcible debater of the first Congress. He had listened to the great orators of other lands. He had heard Pitt and Fox, Burke and Sheridan, and had been present at the trial of Warren Hastings. His unstinted praise meant and still means a great deal, and it concludes with one of the finest and most graceful of compliments. The oration, he says,
"is the effort of a great mind, richly stored with every species of information. If there be an American who can read it without tears, I am not that American. It enters more perfectly into the genuine spirit of New England than any production I ever read. The observations on the Greeks and Romans; on colonization in general; on the West India islands; on the past, present, and future of America, and on the slave-trade, are sagacious, profound, and affecting in a high degree."
"Mr. Burke is no longer ent.i.tled to the praise--the most consummate orator of modern times."
"What can I say of what regards myself? To my humble name, _Exegisti monumentum aere perennius_."
Many persons consider the Plymouth oration to be the finest of all Mr.
Webster"s efforts in this field. It is certainly one of the very best of his productions, but he showed on the next great occasion a distinct improvement, which he long maintained. Five years after the oration at Plymouth, he delivered the address on the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill monument. The superiority to the first oration was not in essentials, but in details, the fruit of a ripening and expanding mind. At Bunker Hill, as at Plymouth, he displayed the ma.s.siveness of thought, the dignity and grandeur of expression, and the range of vision which are all so characteristic of his intellect and which were so much enhanced by his wonderful physical attributes. But in the later oration there is a greater finish and smoothness. We appreciate the fact that the Plymouth oration is a succession of eloquent fragments; the same is true of the Bunker Hill address, but we no longer realize it. The continuity is, in appearance, unbroken, and the whole work is rounded and polished. The style, too, is now perfected. It is at once plain, direct, ma.s.sive, and vivid. The sentences are generally short and always clear, but never monotonous. The preference for Anglo-Saxon words and the exclusion of Latin derivatives are extremely marked, and we find here in rare perfection that highest attribute of style, the union of simplicity, picturesqueness, and force.
In the first Bunker Hill oration Mr. Webster touched his highest point in the difficult task of commemorative oratory. In that field he not only stands unrivalled, but no one has approached him. The innumerable productions of this cla.s.s by other men, many of a high degree of excellence, are forgotten, while those of Webster form part of the education of every American school-boy, are widely read, and have entered into the literature and thought of the country. The orations of Plymouth and Bunker Hill are grouped in Webster"s works with a number of other speeches professedly of the same kind. But only a very few of these are strictly occasional; the great majority are chiefly, if not wholly, political speeches, containing merely pa.s.sages here and there in the same vein as his great commemorative addresses. Before finally leaving the subject, however, it will be well to glance for a moment at the few orations which properly belong to the same cla.s.s as the first two which we have been considering.
The Bunker Hill oration, after the lapse of only a year, was followed by the celebrated eulogy upon Adams and Jefferson. This usually and with justice is ranked in merit with its two immediate predecessors. As a whole it is not, perhaps, quite so much admired, but it contains the famous imaginary speech of John Adams, which is the best known and most hackneyed pa.s.sage in any of these orations. The opening lines, "Sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish, I give my hand and my heart to this vote," since Mr. Webster first p.r.o.nounced them in Faneuil Hall, have risen even to the dignity of a familiar quotation. The pa.s.sage, indeed, is perhaps the best example we have of the power of Mr. Webster"s historical imagination. He had some fragmentary sentences, the character of the man, the nature of the debate, and the circ.u.mstances of the time to build upon, and from these materials he constructed a speech which was absolutely startling in its lifelike force. The revolutionary Congress, on the verge of the tremendous step which was to separate them from England, rises before us as we read the burning words which the imagination of the speaker put into the mouth of John Adams. They are not only instinct with life, but with the life of impending revolution, and they glow with the warmth and strength of feeling so characteristic of their supposed author. It is well known that the general belief at the time was that the pa.s.sage was an extract from a speech actually delivered by John Adams. Mr. Webster, as well as Mr.
Adams"s son and grandson, received numerous letters of inquiry on this point, and it is possible that many people still persist in this belief as to the origin of the pa.s.sage. Such an effect was not produced by mere clever imitation, for there was nothing to imitate, but by the force of a powerful historic imagination and a strong artistic sense in its management.
In 1828 Mr. Webster delivered an address before the Mechanics" Inst.i.tute in Boston, on "Science in connection with the Mechanic Arts," a subject which was outside of his usual lines of thought, and offered no especial attractions to him. This oration is graceful and strong, and possesses sufficient and appropriate eloquence. It is chiefly interesting, however, from the reserve and self-control, dictated by a nice sense of fitness, which it exhibited. Omniscience was not Mr. Webster"s foible. He never was guilty of Lord Brougham"s weakness of seeking to prove himself master of universal knowledge. In delivering an address on science and invention, there was a strong temptation to an orator like Mr. Webster to subst.i.tute glittering rhetoric for real knowledge; but the address at the Mechanics"
Inst.i.tute is simply the speech of a very eloquent and a liberally educated man upon a subject with which he had only the most general acquaintance.
The other orations of this cla.s.s were those on "The Character of Washington," the second Bunker Hill address, "The Landing at Plymouth,"
delivered in New York at the dinner of the Pilgrim Society, the remarks on the death of Judge Story and of Mr. Mason, and finally the speech on laying the corner-stone for the addition to the Capitol, in 1851. These were all comparatively brief speeches, with the exception of that at Bunker Hill, which, although very fine, was perceptibly inferior to his first effort when the corner-stone of the monument was laid. The address on the character of Washington, to an American the most dangerous of great and well-worn topics, is of a high order of eloquence. The theme appealed to Mr. Webster strongly and brought out his best powers, which were peculiarly fitted to do justice to the n.o.ble, ma.s.sive, and dignified character of the subject. The last of these addresses, that on the addition to the Capitol, was in a prophetic vein, and, while it shows but little diminution of strength, has a sadness even in its splendid antic.i.p.ations of the future, which makes it one of the most impressive of its cla.s.s. All those which have been mentioned, however, show the hand of the master and are worthy to be preserved in the volumes which contain the n.o.ble series that began in the early flush of genius with the brilliant oration in the Plymouth church, and closed with the words uttered at Washington, under the shadow of the Capitol, when the light of life was fading and the end of all things was at hand.