The Project Gutenberg EBook of Daniel Webster, by Henry Cabot Lodge

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Title: Daniel Webster

Author: Henry Cabot Lodge

Release Date: July 29, 2004 [EBook #13047]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANIEL WEBSTER ***

Produced by Linda Cantoni and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team.

[Linda Cantoni <[email protected]>]

American Statesmen

EDITED BY

JOHN T. MORSE, JR.

American Statesmen

DANIEL WEBSTER

BY

HENRY CABOT LODGE

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY

The Riverside Press Cambridge

1883 AND 1911, BY HENRY CABOT LODGE

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH

CHAPTER II.

LAW AND POLITICS IN NEW HAMPSHIRE

CHAPTER III.

THE DARTMOUTH COLLEGE CASE.—MR. WEBSTER AS A LAWYER

CHAPTER IV.

THE MASSACHUSETTS CONVENTION AND THE PLYMOUTH ORATION

CHAPTER V.

RETURN TO CONGRESS

CHAPTER VI.

THE TARIFF OF 1828 AND THE REPLY TO HAYNE

CHAPTER VII.

THE STRUGGLE WITH JACKSON AND THE RISE OF THE WHIG PARTY

CHAPTER VIII.

SECRETARY OF STATE.—THE ASHBURTON TREATY

CHAPTER IX.

RETURN TO THE SENATE.—THE SEVENTH OF MARCH SPEECH

CHAPTER X.

THE LAST YEARS

DANIEL WEBSTER.

[NOTE.—In preparing this volume I have carefully examined all the literature contemporary and posthumous relating to Mr. Webster. I have not gone beyond the printed material, of which there is a vast mass, much of it of no value, but which contains all and more than is needed to obtain a correct understanding of the man and of his public and private life. No one can pretend to write a life of Webster without following in large measure the narrative of events as given in the elaborate, careful, and scholarly biography which we owe to Mr. George T. Curtis. In many of my conclusions I have differed widely from those of Mr. Curtis, but I desire at the outset to acknowledge fully my obligations to him. I have sought information in all directions, and have obtained some fresh material, and, as I believe, have thrown a new light upon certain points, but this does not in the least diminish the debt which I owe to the ample biography of Mr. Curtis in regard to the details as well as the general outline of Mr. Webster's public and private life.]

CHAPTER I.

CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH.

No sooner was the stout Puritan Commonwealth of Massachusetts firmly planted than it began rapidly to throw out branches in all directions. With every succeeding year the long, thin, sinuous line of settlements stretched farther and farther away to the northeast, fringing the wild shores of the Atlantic with houses and farms gathered together at the mouths or on the banks of the rivers, and with the homes of hardy fishermen which clustered in little groups beneath the shelter of the rocky headlands. The extension of these plantations was chiefly along the coast, but there was also a movement up the river courses toward the west and into the interior. The line of northeastern settlements began first to broaden in this way very slowly but still steadily from the plantations at Portsmouth and Dover, which were nearly coeval with the flourishing towns of the Bay. These settlements beyond the Massachusetts line all had one common and marked characteristic. They were all exposed to Indian attack from the earliest days down to the period of the Revolution. Long after the dangers of Indian raids had become little more than a tradition to the populous and flourishing communities of Massachusetts Bay, the towns and villages of Maine and New Hampshire continued to be the outposts of a dark and bloody border land. French and Indian warfare with all its attendant horrors was the normal condition during the latter part of the seventeenth and the first quarter of the eighteenth century. Even after the destruction of the Jesuit missions, every war in Europe was the signal for the appearance of Frenchmen and savages in northeastern New England, where their course was marked by rapine and slaughter, and lighted by the flames of burning villages. The people thus assailed were not slow in taking frequent and thorough vengeance, and so the conflict, with rare intermissions, went on until the power of France was destroyed, and the awful danger from the north, which had hung over the land for nearly a century, was finally extinguished.

The people who waged this fierce war and managed to make headway in despite of it were engaged at the same time in a conflict with nature which was hardly less desperate. The soil, even in the most favored places, was none of the best, and the predominant characteristic of New Hampshire was the great rock formation which has given it the name of the Granite State. Slowly and painfully the settlers made their way back into the country, seizing on every fertile spot, and wringing subsistence and even a certain prosperity from a niggardly soil and a harsh climate. Their little hamlets crept onward toward the base of those beautiful hills which have now become one of the favorite play-grounds of America, but which then frowned grimly even in summer, dark with trackless forests, and for the larger part of the year were sheeted with the glittering, untrampled snow from which they derive their name. Stern and strong with the force of an unbroken wilderness, they formed at all times a forbidding background to the sparse settlements in the valleys and on the seashore.

This life of constant battle with nature and with the savages, this work of wresting a subsistence from the unwilling earth while the hand was always armed against a subtle and cruel foe, had, of course, a marked effect upon the people who endured it. That, under such circumstances, men should have succeeded not only in gaining a livelihood, but should have attained also a certain measure of prosperity, established a free government, founded schools and churches, and built up a small but vigorous and thriving commonwealth, is little short of marvellous. A race which could do this had an enduring strength of character which was sure to make itself felt through many generations, not only on their ancestral soil, but in every region where they wandered in search of a fortune denied to them at home. The people of New Hampshire were of the English Puritan stock. They were the borderers of New England, and were among