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Daniel Webster This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com DanielWebster º, tº A * [3 tº C * 2D m § § i s - DANIEL WEBSTER - - - |) DANIEL WEBSTER BY JOHN BACH McMASTER UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA Wlustratefc NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1902 Copyright, 1900, 1901, 1902, by The Centcry Co. Published October, 1901 THE DEVINNE PRE3*. TO ROBERT BACH McMASTER CONTENTS chapter I SCHOOL DAYS - II STRUGGLING WITH POWERTY AND LAW III ENTRANCE INTO POLITICS IV A CONGRESSMAN FROM NEW HAMPSHIRE V A CONGRESSMAN FROM MASSACHUSETTS . VI A NEW ENGLAND FEDERALIST 122 VII THE ENCOUNTER WITH HAYNE . 146 VIII EXPOUNDER OF THE CONSTITUTION 182 IX THE ENCOUNTER WITH CALHOUN X A WHIG LEADER - - - - - 226 XI THE STRUGGLE WITH SLAVERY . XII SECRETARY OF STATE . 255 XIII LONGING FOR THE PRESIDENCY . 284 . 303 THE SEVENTH OF MARCH - - - LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS DANIEL WEBSTER...................................... FRONTISPIECE From a daguerreotype. Page ROOM IN WHICH DANIEL WEBSTER WAS BORN, FRANK LIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE. PRESENT CONDITION .......... 7 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst. ELMS FARM, FRANKLIN, NEW HAMPSHIRE, WEBSTER'S HOME AS A CHILD.......................................... 7 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst. REV. JOSEPH STEVENS BUCKMINSTER ................ ... ... 13 From the painting by Gilbert Stuart in the Boston Athenaeum. THE SECOND ACADEMY BUILDING (PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY) AS IT STOOD WHEN ATTENDED BY DANIEL WEBSTER IN 1796............................................. 19 Drawn by Harry Fenn. DANIEL WEBSTER'S HOUSE IN PORTSMOUTH, NEW HAMPSHIRE................................................... 19 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst. “WEBSTER'S HOUSE,” DARTMOUTH COLLEGE, WHERE DANIEL WEBSTER ROOMED WHEN A STUDENT ........ 27 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst. CHRISTOPHER GORE ........................................... 39 From the painting by J. Trumbull in the Harvard Memorial Hall, Cambridge. WEBSTER'S MOTHER........................................... 45 From silhouette in the collection of Mrs. Abbott Lawrence. GRACE FLETCHER (MRS. DANIEL WEBSTER)............... 49 From the painting by C. Harding in the collection of Mrs. Abbott Lawrence. DANIEL WEBSTER AS A YOUNG MAN. 59 From the original miniature presented to Miss Grace Fletcher (after. #. Mrs. Webster) by Mr. Webster. Lent by Mrs. Ella Lincoln erce. ix X LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Page THE CAPITOL, 1814.............................................. 77 From a drawing in the Congressional Library. WEBSTER'S HOUSE IN SOMERSET STREET, BOSTON....... 91 WEBSTER'S CHAIR AND STICK. 91 ##" a photograph of the original in the possession of Mr. Walton IMPRESSION FROM WEBSTER'S SEAL-RING, OWNED BY MRS. C. H. JOY................................................ 91 JAMES MADISON ................................................ 105 From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. JOHN MARSHALL ............................................... 105 From the portrait by Henry Inman. JAMES MONROE ................................................. 105 From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 127 From the portrait by Stuart and Sully, in Memorial Hall, Harvard University. ANDREW JACKSON.............................................. 127 JEREMIAH MASON .............................................. 153 From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. EDWARD EVERETT .............. --- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 153 From a daguerreotype. JOSEPH STORY.................................................. 153 From the portrait by Gilbert Stuart. ROBERT Y. HAYNE ............................................. 175 Drawn by George T. Tobin, from a print in possession of William H. Hayne. THOMAS N. BENTON. ............ 207 From a photograph in the collection of Robert Coster. JOHN C. CALHOUN. ........................... 207 From a lithograph after a daguerreotype. HENRY CLAY . 207 From the portrait by Marchant in the diplomatic reception rooms, State Department, Washington. WEBSTER'S HOUSE IN SUMMER STREET, BOSTON......... 219 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xi Page CAROLINE LEROY, MR. WEBSTER'S SECOND WIFE........ 233 From a crayon portrait owned by Mrs. Abbott Lawrence. JOSEPH STORY, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT . 257 ALEXANDER BARING, LORD ASHBURTON................... 277 From a portrait by G. P. A. Healy painted in 1843, in commemoration of the Webster-Ashburton treaty. In the diplomatic reception rooms of the State Department, Washington. EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR OF WEBSTER'S LAW OFFICE AT MARSHFIELD, MASS...................................... 285 Drawn by B. West Clinedinst. RUFUS CHOATE ................................................. 295 From a photograph by Josiah J. Hawes, taken between 1855 and 1860. The negative was not retouched. DANIEL WEBSTER .............................................. 319 From the ºf by G. P. A. Healy. This portrait was painted in 1848, as a companion portrait to that of Lord Ashburton, and hangs in the diplomatic reception rooms of the State Department. DANIEL WEBSTER DANIEL WEBSTER CHAPTER I SCHOOL DAYS ONE hundred and fifty years ago, when New Hampshire was a royal province, when the frontier of civilization had not been pushed farther up the Merrimac than Concord, when the French still held the Mississippi valley, the Great Lakes, and the river St. Lawrence, and were about to build their forts at the headwaters of the Alle ghany, when events were hurrying on the seven years' struggle that was to settle once and for all who should rule America, a band of hardy pio neers took up land under patent, and, in the heart of the forest, some eighteen miles north of Con cord, laid the foundation of Major Stevens' town. The venture was scarcely started when the storm of war burst upon the country, and not until the victory on the Plains of Abraham gave peace and quiet to the frontier did Stevenstown, soon re named Salisbury, begin to thrive. Another band of backwoodsmen then made it their home, and among these was a young Indian-fighter of four 3 4 DANIEL WEBSTER and-twenty, Ebenezer Webster. He came of a race of commonwealth-builders who, for a century past, had lived and fought on the soil of New Hamp shire, and was himself a splendid type of sturdy and vigorous manhood. Born at Kingston, his youth was passed in the exciting times of King George's War, when the French and Indians were harrying the frontier, and when all New England rang with joy over the capture of the fortress of Louisburg. He was fifteen when the surrender of Fort Necessity opened the Seven Years' War in serious earnest, and before it ended he saw service that was no child’s play in a famous corps known as Rogers' Rangers. The war over, Ebenezer Webster came back to the settlements, selected Stevenstown as his future home, took up land, and built a log cabin, to which, a year later, he brought a wife. The town was then on the very edge of the frontier, and as his cabin was farther north than any other, not a habi tation save those of the red man lay between him and Canada. In this wilderness home five children were born before the mother died, after ten years of wedded life, and the father brought to it as his second wife Abigail Eastman. Wringing a livelihood from such a soil in such a climate was hard enough at any time, but the task was now made more difficult still by the opening of the long struggle between the colonies and the mother-country, and the constant demand on his SCHOOL DAYS 5 time for services, both civil and military. Now we see him, after the fights at Concord and Lex ington, hurrying at the head of his company to join the forces around Boston; now home again to serve as delegate to the convention which framed the first constitution of New Hampshire. Now we see him, a true minuteman, resigning his captaincy and hastening to serve under Washington, in an hour of dire need at White Plains; then home again to become a member of a committee to prevent forestalling and to regulate the prices of commod ities. Now we behold him at the head of seventy men pushing through the wilderness for the relief of Ticonderoga; now returning when he hears of the evacuation of the fort, and reaching home just in time to lead back another band that fought gal lantly at Bennington. Once again at home we find him at the head of more committees to regu late prices, to enlist the town's quota for the Con tinental army, and finally in command of four com panies raised to aid in the defense of West Point. Public services of such various sorts bespeak a man with a will not easily bent, with a capacity to do equal to any emergency, with a patriotism ris ing above all considerations of self; a man coura geous, resourceful, self-reliant, and commanding the entire confidence and respect of his fellows. By the time Cornwallis surrendered and the fighting ended, three more children had been added to the little flock. The log cabin had now become 6 DANIEL WEBSTER too small, and a farm-house was built near by. It was the typical New England farm-house of the day— one story high, clapboarded, with the chim ney in the center, the door in the middle of the south side, four rooms on the ground floor, and a lean-to in the rear for a kitchen ; and in this house, on January 18, 1782, another son was born, and named Daniel. When the child was a year and more old the parents moved to the banks of the Merrimac, to Elms Farm, a place of some local interest, for on it, within a cabin whose site was plainly visible in Webster's day, had been perpetrated one of the many Indian massacres that make up so much of frontier history, and near this had stood one of the last of the forts built to protect the inhabitants of Salisbury and the neighboring towns against the savages. As the boy grew in years and stature his life was powerfully affected by the facts that he was the youngest son and ninth child in a family of ten; that his health was far from good; that he showed tastes and mental traits that stood out in marked contrast with those of his brothers and sis ters ; and that he was, from infancy, the pet of the family.
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