Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 25, 1852) was an American lawyer, United States Senator and Secretary of State during the nation’s Antebellum era. As an attorney he served as legal counsel in several cases that established important constitutional precedents bolstering the authority of the Federal government. As a diplomat, Webster negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which established the definitive Eastern border between the United States and Canada.

Famed for his ability as an orator, Webster was one of the most important national Whig leaders in the Second Party System from the 1820s to the 1850s and a leading figure in the U.S. Senate during its “Golden Age.” So well known was his talent and skill as a Senator throughout this period that Webster, along with his colleagues Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun, became a third of what was and still is known today as the “Great Triumvirate”. Like Henry Clay, his desire to see the Union preserved and conflict averted led him to search out compromises designed to stave off the sectionalism that threatened war between the North and South.

Early life

Daniel Webster was born January 18, 1782 to Ebenezer and Abigail Webster (née Eastman) in Salisbury, New Hampshire. There, along with his nine other siblings (ten in total, five of whom were from his father’s previous marriage), he was raised on his parents’ farm, a small parcel of land granted to his father in recognition of his service in the French and Indian War. As Daniel was a “sickly” child, his family exempted him from the harsh rigors of 18th century New England farm life and were all moderately indulgent toward him."Daniel Webster." American Eras, Volume 5: The Reform Era and Eastern U.S. Development, 1815-1850. Gale Research, 1998. Student Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 16 June 2006.

Though poor and uneducated, Ebenezer Webster was made a judge on the local court in 1791, a position which carried a salary of four hundred dollars; the Elder Webster resolved to use this money to educate young Daniel. After attending local schools for most of his life, Daniel Webster was subsequently enrolled at the Phillips Exeter Academy at age 14. There his rustic clothing and mannerisms brought him the ridicule of his peers, resulting in a lasting fear of public speaking. After nine months at Phillips, the Websters, unable to meet the academy's costs, were forced to recall Daniel home."Daniel Webster." Discovering Biography. Online Edition. Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 16 June 2006 Here his lessons were continued by a private tutor until the summer of 1797, at which time he enrolled at Dartmouth College. At Dartmouth, Webster was able to lay to rest his terror of public speaking, due in part to the college's mandatory declamation, along with the aid of the United Fraternity literary society in which he practiced the art of oratory. Here Webster gave orations on topics ranging from the United States' looming (at the time) acquisition of Florida, to the morality of the death penalty. It was reported of Webster in John F. Kennedy's Profiles in Courage that he could "think out a speech sentence by sentence, correct the sentences in his mind without the use of a pencil and then deliver it exactly as he thought it out." Webster soon became known throughout the town of Hanover (the city in which Dartmouth was located) as an orator and in 1800 Webster was invited to give an oration at their Independence Day celebration. Webster went on to graduate from Dartmouth Phi Beta Kappa in 1801.

Rise to prominence

After graduation in 1801, Webster accepted a short lived apprenticeship under Thomas W. Thompson. He was forced to resign and become a schoolmaster however, when his older brother's own quest for education put a financial strain on the family that consequently required Webster's support. When his brother's education could no longer be sustained (forcing him ironically to also take up a school mastership), Webster returned to his apprenticeship, this time leaving New Hampshire and gaining employment in Boston under prominent attorney Christopher Gore in 1804. Serving as a clerk under Gore, a man who was involved in international, national, and state politics, Webster was able to educate himself on invaluable political subjects, along with making the acquaintances of their many major New England players.

In 1805 Webster was accepted into the bar and returned to New Hampshire to set up a practice in Boscawen, in part to be near his ailing father. Here Webster began to further his name as he defended and when he was needed, prosecuted cases against foes such as Jeremiah Mason, all the while refining his oratorical style. During this time his interest in politics slowly began to publicly manifest itself. Having been raised by an ardent Federalist father and taught by a predominantly Federalist leaning faculty at Dartmouth, Webster like most of New England supported Federalism (albeit in Webster's case, more liberally) and accepted a number of minor local speaking engagements in support of Federalist causes and candidates during his time at Boscawen.Cheek, H. Lee, Jr. "Webster, Daniel." In Schultz, David, ed. Encyclopedia of American Law. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2002. Facts On File, Inc. American History Online.

After his father's 1806 death, Webster left his practice to his older brother Ezekiel, who had by this time finished his schooling and been admitted to the bar. Webster then moved to the bigger and more challenging market of Portsmouth in 1807. Around the same time the Napoleonic wars' effects began to reach Americans with Britain, short of sailors, strengthening its navy through the impressment of American sailors thought to be British deserters. President Thomas Jefferson, whose election was bemoaned by many a Federalist, responded by issuing the Embargo Act of 1807, an attempt at what Jefferson called "peacable coercion" that sought to stem British and French aggression by cutting off American exports to both.

Many New Englanders, including those of Portsmouth, were reliant on trade with England for their livelihoods and were subsequently thrown into economic hardship. Being much more negatively impacted by Jefferson's policies than British commercial interference, New England shippers vehemently protested against the Embargo and in 1808, Webster penned an anonymous pamphlet attacking it. Despite the protests of New England, succeeding years saw a continued violation of America's neutral rights and the rest of the nation eagerly turned Jefferson's "peacable coercion" into Madison's War of 1812.

That same year Daniel Webster gave an address to the Washington Benevolent Society, an oration that proved critical to his career. The speech decried the war and the violation of New England's shipping rights that preceded it, but it also strongly denounced the extremism of those more radical among the unhappy New Englanders who were beginning to call for the region's secession from the union.

The Washington oration was widely circulated and read throughout New Hampshire and it led to his selection to the Rockingham Convention of the same year, an assembly held in Rockingham, New Hampshire that sought to formally declare the state's grievances with President Madison and the federal government. There he was a member of the drafting committee and was chosen to compose the "Rockingham Memorial" to be sent to Madison. The report included much of the same tone and opinions held in the Washington Society address, except that it, unlike Webster's and uncharacteristically of its chief architect, vaguely alluded to the threat of secession saying, "If a separation of the states shall ever take place, it will be, on some occasion, when one portion of the country undertakes to control, to regulate, and to sacrifice the interest of another." According to Henry Cabot Lodge, Rockingham shows Webster's "susceptibility to outside influences which formed such an odd trait in the character of a man so imperious by nature. When acting alone, he spoke his own opinions. When in a situation where public opinion was concentrated against him, he submitted to modifications of his views with a curious and indolent indifference."

"The Administration asserts the right to fill the ranks of the regular army by compulsion...Is this, sir, consistent with the character of a free government? Is this civil liberty? Is this the real character of our Constitution? No sire, indeed it is not....Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly or the wickedness of government may engage it? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and bailful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty?

Daniel Webster (''December 9, 1814 House of Representatives Address)

In any event, Webster's efforts on behalf of New England Federalism, shipping interests, and war opposition resulted in his election to the House of Representatives in 1812 where he served two terms. While there, for the most part he held the party line as an outspoken critic of the Madison Administration and its wartime policies, denouncing its efforts at financing the war through paper money and unequivocally opposing Secretary of War James Monroe's conscription proposal. Notable in his second term was his support of the reestablishment of a stable specie based national bank, but his rejection of the tariff of 1816 (seeking to protect the nation's manufacturing interests) and House Speaker Henry Clay's American System. His uncharacteristic opposition to an endeavor so nationalistic in purpose was in accordance with a number of his professed beliefs (and the majority of his constituents') including free trade, that the tariff's "great object was to raise revenue, not to foster manufacture," and that it was against "the true spirit of the Constitution" to give "excessive bounties or encouragements to one ^* over another."

Following the completion of his second term, Webster declined to seek a third, choosing instead to focus on his law practice. In an attempt to secure greater financial success for himself and his family (he had married Grace Fletcher in 1808, with whom he had four children), he moved his practice from Portsmouth to the even more lucrative Boston.

Notable Supreme Court Cases

Though Webster had been highly regarded in New Hampshire since his days in Boscawen and had been respected throughout the House during his service there, his proverbial national star did not begin to rise until his legal work on a number of important cases. These cases brought Webster to the forefront of the era's study and understanding of the young constitution, testing its limits and establishing its lasting precedents.

In 1816, Webster was retained by the Federalist trustees of his alma mater, Dartmouth College, to represent them in their case against the newly elected New Hampshire Republican state legislature. The legislature had in a final step in a series of escalating events (the year before the trustees had ousted the college's Republican president) passed new laws that made alterations to the school's original charter, changing the size of the college's trustee body and adding a further board of overseers, which they put into the hands of the state senate, effectively seizing control of the private college, with no offer of compensation.Baker, Thomas E. "Dartmouth College v. Woodward." In Schultz, David, ed. Encyclopedia of American Law. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2002. Facts On File, Inc. American History Online.

"This, sir, is my case. It is the case not merely of that humble institution, it is the case of every college in our land... Sir, you may destroy this little institution; it is weak; it is in your hands! I know it is one of the lesser lights in the literary horizon of our country. You may put it out. But if you do so you must carry through your work! You must extinguish, one after another, all those greater lights of science which for more than a century have thrown their radiance over our land. It is, sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!"

Daniel Webster (''Dartmouth College v. Woodward)

Webster argued the case to the Supreme Court (with significant aid from Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith), invoking _Limits_on_the_states of the Constitution (the Contract Clause) against the State. Webster memorably ended his peroration addressing Chief Justice John Marshall and saying, "It is, Sir, as I have said, a small college. And yet there are those who love it!" The Marshall court, continuing with its history of limiting states rights and reaffirming the supremacy of the Federal Government, ruled in favor of Webster and Dartmouth 3-1. The effect of Webster's win and the court's affirming of the inability of states to unilaterally modify contracts was to help secure the private and independent rights of business against state encroachments. O'Brien, Patrick K., gen. ed. "Dartmouth College case." Encyclopedia of World History. Copyright George Philip Limited. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2000. Facts On File, Inc. World History Online.

Other notable appearances by Webster before the Supreme Court include his representation of James McCulloch in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819) and his defense of Aaron Ogden in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), cases similar to Dartmouth in the court's application of a broad interpretation of the Constitution and liberal granting of Congressional power. Webster's handling of these cases made him one of the era's foremost constitutional lawyers, as well as one of the most highly paid.Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved June 18, 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Premium Service: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article?tocId=7826

Return to politics

In 1820 Daniel Webster's growing prominence as a constitutional lawyer and orator led to his election as a delegate to the 1820 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention, which considered a number of issues including the mandatory profession of religious faith to hold office in the state, property requirements for holding office in the legislature, judicial independence, and provisions for the creation of the Maine region as a state as per the 1820 Missouri Compromise. Here, according to Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story (also a delegate), Webster's renown grew as he spoke on these subjects at the convention. On Webster, Story wrote to Jeremiah Mason that "Our friend Webster has gained a noble reputation. He was before known as a lawyer; but he has now secured the title of an eminent and enlightened statesman." Still further did Webster's reputation go in December of that year when he gave an oration at Plymouth commemorating the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620, which was circulated and widely read throughout New England.

The result of this 1820s surge in popularity was his 1822 return to the House of Representatives. Upon his arrival, as a leader of the fragmented Federalist (made so after the failures of the secessionist minded 1814 Hartford Convention that he shunned), he was eagerly courted by Democratic-Republican Speaker Henry Clay for his support and was consequently made chairman of the Judiciary Committee. His term of service in the House between 1822 and 1828 was marked by his legislative success at reforming the United States criminal code, his failure at expanding the size of the Supreme court, and his support of the National Republican Adams administration (whom he supported in the highly contested election of 1824) against expansionist southerners in the President's efforts to respect the land rights of Creek Indians as established by their formal treaties with the U.S.

His efforts in the House and the high regard he had earned throughout Massachusetts over the course of a decade eventually led to his 1827 election to the Senate from the state of Massachusetts. Shortly thereafter in 1828, his first wife, Grace, died. He later married Caroline LeRoy.

Senate

When Webster took his seat in the Senate in 1828, he found the body considering a new tariff bill, the so called "Tariff of Abominations" that sought to increase the duties on foreign manufactured goods on top of the increases of 1824 and 1816, both of which Webster had opposed. Now however, Webster changed his position to support a protective tariff. Explaining the change, Webster stated that after the failure of the rest of the nation to heed New England's objections in 1816 and 1824, "nothing was left to New England but to conform herself to the will of others," and now consequently being heavily invested in manufacturing, he would not now do them injury. It is the more blunt opinion of Justus D. Doenecke that Webster's support of the 1828 tariff was a result of "his new closeness to the rising mill-owning families of the region, the Lawrences and the Lowells.""Daniel Webster." Discovering Biography. Online Edition. Gale, 2003. Student Resource Center. Thomson Gale. 16 June 2006 Webster also gave greater approval to Clay's American System, a change that along with his modified view of the tariff, brought him closer to Henry Clay who had actively courted him since his second arrival at the House.

The passage of the tariff brought increased sectional tension to the U.S., tensions that were agitated by then Vice President John C. Calhoun's promulgation of his South Carolina Exposition and Protest. The exposition espoused the idea of nullification, a doctrine first articulated in the U.S. by Madison and Jefferson that held that states were sovereign entities and held ultimate authority over the limits of the power of the federal government and could thus "nullify" any act of the central government it deemed unconstitutional. Calhoun's ideas were circulated throughout the South as pamphlets and while the tensions they increased for a time lay under the surface, they burst forth when South Carolina Senator Robert Young Hayne opened the 1830 Webster-Hayne debate.

When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union; on States dissevered, discordant, belligerent; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the republic... not a stripe erased or polluted, nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto, no such miserable interrogatory as "What is all this worth?" nor those other words of delusion and folly, "Liberty first and Union afterwards"; but everywhere, spread all over in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to every true American heart,— Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!''

Daniel Webster (''Second Reply to Hayne)

On January 19, 1830, Hayne acting, as has been contended by James Schouler, as Calhoun's "sword and buckler", Calhoun, while constitutionally "President of the Senate" as vice president of the nation and ever present throughout the debate, could not formally address the chamber in business, though it is contended by Schouler that he acted through Hayne seized upon a relatively unimportant resolution concerning the sales and surveys of western lands, unexpectedly charging New England with wishing to arrest the west's growth for its England's own benefit, all in an attempt by Hayne to sway the west against the North and tariff. The next day Webster, feeling compelled to respond on New England's behalf, gave his first rebuttal to Hayne, highlighting what he saw as the virtues of the North's policies toward the west and charging that restrictions on western expansion and growth were primarily the responsibility of southerners. Hayne in turn responded the following day, denouncing Webster's inconsistencies with regards to the American system and personally attacking Webster for his role in the so called "corrupt bargain" of 1824. The course of the debate strayed even further away from the initial matter of land sales with Hayne openly defending the "Carolina Doctrine" of nullification as being the doctrine of Jefferson and Madison.

On January 26, Webster gave his famous Second Reply to Hayne which embodied what John F. Kennedy called, Webster's "ability to make alive and supreme the latent sense of oneness, of union, that all Americans felt but few could express." In it, Webster openly attacked Nullification, negatively contrasted South Carolina's response to the tariff with that of his native New England's response to the Embargo of 1807, rebutted Hayne's personal attacks against him, and famously concluded in defiance of nullification (which would years later come to be embodied in John C. Calhoun's famous declaration of "The Union; second to our liberty most dear!"), "Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!"

While The debate's philosophical presentation of nullification and Webster's abstract fears of rebellion would be brought into reality in 1832 when Calhoun's native South Carolina passed its Ordinance of Nullification, Webster would support Andrew Jackson's sending of U.S. troops to the borders of South Carolina and the Force Bill, not Henry Clay's 1833 compromise that would eventually defuse the crisis. Deeming a number of Clay's consessions to be dangerous, especially the resolution affirming that "the people of the several States composing these United States are united as parties to a constitutional compact, to which the people of each State acceded as a separate sovereign community," as the usage of the word accede would, in his opinion, lead to the logical end of those states' right to secede.

Since I have arrived here Washington, I have had an application to be concerned, professionally, against the bank, which I have declined, of course, although I believe my retainer has not been renewed or refreshed as usual. If it be wished that my relation to the Bank should be continued, it may be well to send me the usual retainers.''

Daniel Webster (''A letter to officials at the bank)

At the same time however, Webster, like Clay, opposed the econmic policies of Andrew Jackson, the most famous of those being Jackson's campaign against the Second Bank of the United States in 1832, an institution that held him on retainer as legal counsel and whose Boston Branch he was the director of. Jackson's destruction of the Second Bank formally united Clay, Webster, and a number of other former Federalists and National Republicans under the umbrella of the Whig Party. The destruction of the bank (which would lead to an economic panic), coupled with Webster's heavy speculation in mid-western property, resulted in a personal debt from which Webster would never recover.

In 1836, Webster was one of three Whig party candidates to run for the office of President, but he managed only to gain the support of Massachusetts. This was the first of several unsuccessful attempts at gaining the presidency. In 1840, the Whig Party nominated William Henry Harrison for president. Webster was offered the vice presidency, but declined the offer.

As Secretary of State

Following his victory in 1840, President William Henry Harrison appointed Webster to the post of Secretary of State in 1841, a post he retained under President John Tyler after the untimely death of Harrison only a month after his inauguration. In September 1841, an internal division amongst the Whigs over the question of the National Bank caused all the Whigs, except Webster who was in Europe at the time, to resign from Tyler's cabinet. In 1842, he was the architect of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which resolved the Caroline Affair, established the definitive Eastern border between the United States and Canada (Maine and New Brunswick), and signaled a definite and lasting peace between the United States and Britain. Despite this success, Webster succumbed to Whig pressure in May 1842 and finally left the cabinet.

Later career and death

In 1845, he was re-elected to the Senate where he opposed both the annexation of Texas and the resulting war with Mexico for fear of its upsetting the delicate balance of slave and non slave states. In 1848, he again sought the Whig Party's nomination for President but was beaten out by military hero Zachary Taylor. Webster was once again offered the vice presidency but declined saying, "I do not propose to be buried until I am dead." The Whig ticket won the election; Taylor died 16 months later.

The Compromise of 1850 was the Congressional effort, led by Clay and Stephen Douglas to compsomise the sectional disputes that seemed to be headed toward civil war. On March 7, 1850, Webster gave one of his great speeches, characterizing himself "not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man but as an American...", in support of Clay's compromise. Webster supported the fugitive slave clause that required federal officials to recapture and return runaway slaves.

Webster was bitterly attacked by abolitionists in New England who felt betrayed by his compromises. Rev. Theodore Parker complained, "No living man has done so much to debauch the conscience of the nation." Horace Mann described him as being "a fallen star! Lucifer descending from Heaven!" James Russell Lowell called Webster, "the most meanly and foolishly treacherous man I ever heard of." Webster never recovered the popularity he lost in the aftermath of the Seventh of March speech.

I shall stand by the Union...with absolute disregard of personal consequences. What are personal consequences...in comparison with the good or evil which may befall a great country in a crisis like this?...Let the consequences be what they will.... No man can suffer too much, and no man can fall too soon, if he suffer or if he fall in defense of the liberties and constitution of his country.''

Daniel Webster (''July 17, 1850 address to the Senate)

Resigning the Senate under a cloud in 1850, he resumed his former position as Secretary of State in the cabinet of Whig President Millard Fillmore. In 1852 he made his final campaign for the Presidency, again for the Whig nomination. Before and during the campaign a number of critics asserted that his support of the compromise was only an attempt to win southern support for his candidacy, merely "profound selfishness," in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Though the Seventh of March speech was indeed warmly received throughout the south, the speech made him too polarizing a figure to receive the nomination and Webster was again defeated by a military hero, this time General Winfield Scott.

He died on October 24, 1852, at his home in Marshfield, Massachusetts as a result of a brain hemorrhage following a fall from his horse and a crushing blow to the head. After his death, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote:

Last Sunday I was at Plymouth on the beach....I supposed Webster must have passed, as indeed he had died at three in the morning. The sea, the rocks, the woods, gave no sign that America and the world had lost the completest man. Nature had not in our days, or not since Napoleon, cut out such a masterpiece. He brought the strength of a savage into the height of culture. He was a man in equilibrio; a man within and without, the strong and perfect body of the first ages, with the civility and thought of the last.

Legacy

Webster's stance and the passage of Clay's 1850 compromise measures if nothing else, helped to forestall War. His legacy also includes his speeches which have resulted in him being called in the opinions of many including Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and President John F. Kennedy, one of America's greatest orators. In 1957 a senatorial commitee chaired by then Senator Kennedy selected Webster as one of five of their greatest predecessors, whose oval portrait (seen above) would adorn the Senate Reception Room off the Senate floor.

While Daniel Webster's northern contemporaries repudiated the Seventh of March speech and its author for their conciliatory stance on the compromises of 1850, Webster has been commemorated in the popular short story, "The Devil and Daniel Webster" and a statue representing New Hampshire in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol building, as well as in a battle ship, the USS Daniel Webster, and a college, Daniel Webster College in Nashua, New Hampshire, both named after him. A reference to Webster is also made in the 1939 film, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, when James Stewart's character is amazed to find out that he will be sitting in the same seat that Daniel Webster sat in.

Notes

References

Baxter, Maurice G. Daniel Webster and the Supreme Court (1966)
Current, Richard Nelson. Daniel Webster and the Rise of National Conservatism (1955), short biography
Curtis, George Ticknor. Life of Daniel Webster (1870)
Hammond, Bray. Banks and Politics in America from the Revolution to the Civil War (1960), Pulitzer prize; the standard history. Pro-Bank
Lodge, Henry Cabot. Daniel Webster (1883)
Ogg, Frederic Austin. Daniel Webster (1914)
, the standard scholarly biography

Primary sources

The works of Daniel Webster edited in 6 vol. by Edward Everett, Boston: Little, Brown and company, 1853. online edition
Wiltse, Charles M., Harold D. Moser, and Kenneth E. Shewmaker (Diplomatic papers), eds., The Papers of Daniel Webster, (1974-1989). Published for Dartmouth College by the University Press of New England. ser. 1. Correspondence: v. 1. 1798-1824. v. 2. 1825-1829. v. 3. 1830-1834. v. 4. 1835-1839. v. 5. 1840-1843. v. 6. 1844-1849. v. 7. 1850-1852 -- ser. 2. Legal papers: v. 1. The New Hampshire practice. v. 2. The Boston practice. v. 3. The federal practice (2 v.) -- ser. 3. Diplomatic papers: v. 1. 1841-1843. v. 2. 1850-1852 -- ser. 4. Speeches and formal writings: v. 1. 1800-1833. v. 2. 1834-1852.

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