Reminiscences of Congress

Preface

It was the original design of the author to have given a series of descriptive sketches of scenes and persons in Congress, unconnected with any antecedents or relations of the individuals introduced ; but, finding on examination of what had been written that Mr. Webster formed the principal figure in each effort of his pen, he concluded to give the book a more personal character, and make it an approximation to a biography. This change of design will be detected in any, the most cursory, glance at the book; there being a want of congruity or unity too easily discernible throughout.

The writer need not say that he has not attempted a complete biography. It is difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to write the life of the living. It is not merely that friendship would be too partial, or enmity too censorious,

}v PREFACE.

to present a true estimate of the character and conduct of the person illustrated— the difficulty in " obtaining correct information is greater during the life of a person, paradoxical as it may seem, than after his decease. When one eminent in life has gone down to the grave, numbers come forward with ambitious haste, some with letters, some with anecdotes, some with facts illustrative of the character and pursuits of the deceased, and of their relationship to him. The grief we feel at the departure of a distinguished friend is greatly mitigated by the public sympathy with our loss, and we hasten to give that sympathy a proper direction.

Besides, of what we gain as authentic, we are obliged to suppress a part ; if not from regard to the feelings of the person, who is the subject of our memoir, yet from regard to the feelings of others whose relations with him might be affected unfavorably through our indiscreetness. There are many things told, in the intimacy of friendship, in the abandon of social intercourse, that it would be grossly reprehensible as well as indelicate to give publicity to.

The earlier part of Mr. Webster's life, rapidly sketched, it was thought, would lend new interest to his public career ; — we like to trace greatness, if possible, to its seminal principle, and dwell upon its gradual development. The writer of those pages might have given a fuller account of this part of Mr. Webster's life, had he not been restrained

PREFACE. V

by the fear of subjecting himself to a suspicion of having made too liberal use of the opportunities of private friendship. What has been given he hopes will prove not uninteresting.

New York, July \&thy 1850.

Removal of the Deposites — Gen. Jackson's Protest — Mr.. Webster's Reply 264

DANIEL WEBSTER.

Chapter I

Daniel Webster was born on the 18th day of January, 1782, in the town of Salisbury, New Hampshire. His earliest ancestor, of whom the family has any certain knowledge, was Thomas Webster. He was settled in Hampton as early as 1636. The descent from him to Daniel Webster can be found recorded in the Church and Town Records of Hampton, Kingston, (now East Kingston) and Salisbury.

The family came originally from Scotland, two centuries ago and more. It is probable, however, from certain circumstances, that they tarried in England awhile, before emigrating to a new world. They did not bring over with them all the distinguishing peculiarities of their countrymen ; the Scottish accent had become a mere tradition, in the time of Mr. Webster's father's father. The personal characteristics of the family are strongly marked : light complexions, sandyhair in great profusion, bushy eyebrows, and slender rather than broad frames attest the Teutonic and common origin of the race. Dr, Noah Webster,— the compiler of the Diction-

CHAPTER I.

ary, — was, in personal appearance, the vera effigies of the family.

The uncles of Daniel "Webster had the same characteristics. They were fair-haired, and of rather slender form. His father, however, was of a different physical organization. No two persons could look like each other less than Ezekiel Webster — the father of Daniel — and either of his brothers. They resembled their father, who had the hereditary features and form; but Ezekiel "Webster had the black hair, eyes, and complexion of his mother, whose maiden name was Bachelder. She was a descendant of the Rev. Stephen Bachelder, a man famous in his time, in the County of Rockingham, and towns circumjacent. There are many persons now alive in Kingston, who will tell you they have heard their fathers say, she was a woman of uncommon strength of character, and sterling sense. Daniel and his only brother of the whole blood, Ezekiel, alone of the five sons of Ezekiel Webster, had the Bachelder complexion ; the others ran off into the general characteristics of the race.

Many persons in Kingston and Salisbury still live who recollect Ebenezer Webster well. They say his personal appearance was striking. He was tall and erect ; six feet in height ; of a stalwart form, broad and full in the chest. His complexion was swarthy, features large and prominent : with a Roman nose, and eyes of a remarkable brilliancy. He had a military air and carriage, — the result, perhaps, of his service in the army. He enlisted, early in life, as a common soldier in the Provincial troops, and during the war of '56 served under Gen. Amherst, on the north-western frontier ; accompanying that commander in the invasion of Canada. He attracted the attention and secured the good-will of his superior officers, by his faithful and gallant conduct ; and before the close of the war, rose from the ranks to a captaincy. Peace between England and France soon following the capture of Quebec and conquest of Canada, the Provincial troops were disbanded, and returned to their homes.

Previous to the year 1763, the settlements in New Hampshire had made little or no progress towards the interior of the State, for more than half a century. The fitful irruptions of the French from Canada and the more constant if not more cruel assaults of their subsidized allies — the Indians — repressed any movement inward, into the country. To defend what they held, by a kind of cordon militaire of block-houses, was all the frontier-men hoped.

The session of Canada, however, to England, by the Treaty of Paris in 1763, removing the great obstacle to farther progress into the interior, the royal Governor of New Hampshire, Benning Wentworth, began to make grants of townships in the central part of the State. Col. Stevens with some other persons about Kingston, — mostly retired soldiers, — obtained a grant of the township of Salisbury, then called, from the principal grantee, Stevens'-town. This town is situated exactly at the head-waters of the Merrimac River : which river is formed by the confluence of the Pemigiwasset and Winnipiseogee. Under this grant, Ebenezer Wekter obtained a lot situate in the north part of the town. More adventurous than others of the company who obtained grants, he cut his way deeper into the wilderness, making the road he could not find. Here, in 1764, he built a log-cabin and lighted his fire. " The smoke of which," his son has since said on some public occasion, " ascended nearer the North Star than that of any of his majesty's New England subjects." His nearest civilized neighbor in the North was at Montreal, hundreds of miles off.

His first wife dying soon after his settlement at Salisbury, Ebenezer Webster married Abigail Eastman of Salisbury, a lady of Welsh extraction. She was the mother of Daniel and Ezekiel ; and, like the mother of George Canning, was a woman of far more than ordinary intellect. She was proud of, and ambitious for her sons ; and the distinction they both afterwards achieved, may have been, in part, at least, the result of her promptings. The mother knows better than any one the mollia tevijpora fandi. She knows what are words in season ; when the mind is most ductile, and most capable of impressions intended to be permanent. If from our fathers we gain hardihood, mental or physical, and worldly wisdom, in all its variety, it is our mother, with her earnest, devoted, life-long love, that stimulates into healthy activity, whatever of good lies dormant in the heart; inspiring us to seek, if not for our own sake, for hers, honorable position, and an unequalled name.

Ebenezer Webster commemorated his second marriage, by the erection of a frame-house, hard by the log cabin. He dug a well near it, and planted an elm sapling. In this house, the subject of our memoir was born. The house has long since disappeared, from roof to foundation-stone. Nothing indicates its sometime existence but a cellar mostly filled up by stone and earth. But the well still remains, with water as pure, as cool, as limpid, as when first turned to the light : and will remain, in all probability, for ages, to refresh hereafter the votaries of genius, who make their pilgrimage hither to visit the cradle of one of her greatest sons. The elm that shaded the boy still flourishes in vigorous leaf, and may have an existence beyond its perishable nature. Like " the witchelm that guards St. Fillan's Spring," it may live in story, long after leaf, and branch, and root have disappeared for ever.

It is a belief, I suspect almost universal, that natural scenery has great power over the development of character, moral and intellectual. That upon the impressionable mind of infancy, scenes, whether remarkable for traditionary interest, sublimity, ruggedness, or loveliness, stamp sensations of an indelible character ; awaken, if they do not create, the poetic faculty. Burns, Byron, Burke, and Scott, are claimed by their several biographers as conclusive illustrations of the influence, picturesque nature exercises over the imagination and heart. The countless treasures of fancy and beauty, the high and solemn thoughts, the poetic fervor and luxuriant imagination which characterise, in a greater or less

CHAPTER I.

degree, the productions of these extraordinary men may have been suggested, or at least fully developed, by the striking features of the scenery, in the midst of which their earlier days were passed. The romantic localities of Ayr, the wild and picturesque scenery of the Highlands near Ballatrech, the rich, deep, and gorgeous views near by the old castle of Kilcolman — once the favorite residence of the poet Spenser — and the vicinity of Sandy Knowe, with its crags and cliffs, its ruined towers, and " mountains lone," severally the residences in early youth of Burns, Byron, Burke and Scott, may have given rise to feelings, which, increasing with earnest nourishment, till they became irrepressible from indulgence, found suitable expression afterwards in beautiful and nervous diction ; in heroic verse, or glowing prose.

There is little softness or subdued expression in the features of the landscape round about Mr. Webster's birth-place. The bleak, harsh, stern hills, among which his cradle hung high in the air, like the eyrie of an eagle, are all untamed, untameable. But in their sadness, and deep but not voiceless solemnity, they are suggestive of lonely musings and thoughts original and lofty as themselves. They feed the hungry mind with images noble, elevated, and partaking of their own immortality. The laboring clouds in their vague career, often rested on the summits of these hills, covering them over as with a garment, so that they presented at times to the belated traveller of the valleys, the appearance of turbaned giants. Their scarred faces attested the violence of

DANIEL WEBSTER.

the tempests that ranged around them, and beat upon them. In winter, which lasted half the year, snows of a prodigious and dangerous depth covered the ground, obliterating every landmark, and giving to all nature an aspect of desolate sublimity. While, sometimes, in spring, a sudden and vast thaw would unloosen the embrace with which the snows held on to the mountains, and precipitate them in fearful volume, with the force and rush of the avalanche, into the valleys below ; making of quiet streams mighty rivers, dangerous to ford or even approach; the crash of the pines in the woods, as they were borne to the earth by the superincumbent mass of snow, performing fit accompaniment to the scene.

In Mr. Webster's earliest youth an occurrence of such a nature took place, which affected him deeply at the time, and has dwelt in his memory ever since. There was a sudden and extraordinary rise in the Merimac River, in a spring thaw. A deluge of rain for two whole days poured down upon the houses. A mass of mingled water and snow rushed madly from the hills, inundating the fields far and wide. The highways were broken up, and rendered undistinguishable. There was no way for neighbors to interchange visits of condolence or necessity, save by boats, which came up to the very door-steps of the houses.

Many things of value were swept away, even things of bulk. A large barn, full fifty feet by twenty, crowded with hay and grain, sheep, chickens and turkeys, sailed majestically down the river, before the eyes of the astonished inhabitants ; who, no g CHAPTER I.

little frightened, got ready to fly to the mountains, or construct another Ar]

The roar of watery, as they rushed over precipices, casting the foam and spray far above, % crashing of the forest-trees as the storm broke through them, the immense sea everywhere in range of the eye, the sublimity Seven danger of the scene, made an indelible impression upon th<? mind of the youthful observer.

Occurrences and scenes like these excite the imaginative faculty, furnish material for proper thought, call into existence new emotions, give decision to character, and a purpose to ac - tion.

It was the great desire of Ebenezer Webster to give his children an education. A man of strong powers of mind and much practical knowledge himself, he still had felt deeply and often the want of early education, and wished to spare his sons the mortification he had experienced. The schoolmaster then was not abroad, at least had not visited Salisbury in his travels. Small town-schools there were, it is true, and persons superintending them called teachers — Incus a nun lucendo. But these schools were not open half the year, and the schoolmasters had no claim to the position but their incapacity for anything else. Their qualification was their want of qualification. Reading and writing were all they professed, and more than they were able, to teach.

The school was migratory. When it was in the neighborhood of the Webster residence, it was easy to attend j but when it was removed into another part of the town, or another town, as was often the case, it was somewhat difficult. While Mr. Webster was quite young, he was daily sent two miles and a half or three miles to school, and, in the midst of winter, on foot. For carriages or carriage-roads then " were not ;" and, with the exception of an occasional ride on horseback, he walked daily to school and back. If the school moved yet farther off, into a town not contiguous, his father boarded him out in a neighboring family. He was better provided with opportunities for obtaining whatever of instruction these schools could impart than his elder brothers, partly because he evinced early an irrepressible thirst for study and information, and partly because his father thought that his constitution was slender and somewhat frail — too much so for any robust occupation. But Joe, his elder half-brother, who was somewhat of a wag, used to say that " Dan was sent to school, in order that he might know as much as the other boys."

Mr. Webster had no sooner learnt to read, than he showed great eagerness for books. He devoured all -he could lay hands upon. When he was unable to obtain new ones, he read the old ones over and over, till he had committed most of their contents to memory. Books were then (as Dr. Johnson said on some occasion) " like bread in a besieged town ; every man might get a mouthful, but none a full meal." What were obtained, were husbanded with care. Owing chiefly to the exertions of Mr. Thompson, (the lawyer of the place,) of the clergyman, and Mr. Webster's father, a very small circulating li- 1* brary was purchased. These institutions about this time received an impetus from the zeal and labors of Dr. Belknap, the celebrated historian of New Hampshire.

Among the few books of the library, I have heard Mr. Webster say, he found the Spectator, and that he remembers turning over the leaves of Addison's Criticism upon Chevy Chase, for the sake of reading, connectedly, the ballad, the verses of which Addison quotes from time to time, as subjects of remark. " As Dr. Johnson said, in another case, the poet was read, and the critic neglected. I could not understand why it was necessary that the author of the Spectator should take so great pains to prove that Chevy Chase was a good story."

The simple, but sublime story of Chevy Chase, would be no indifferent test for the discovery of how much or how little of the poetic faculty there might be in an individual. None but those who had some poetic fervor could appreciate or even understand it : while those who felt its pathos, its beauty and grandeur most, needs must have the deepest sensibilities. A distinguished literary character has said that he would have been prouder to have been its author than of all the productions from which he derived his fame. Sir Philip Sydney said he never read it but his heart was stirred within him as at the sound of a trumpet.

Mr. Webster was early very fond of poetry. He was not satisfied with reading it merely, but committed a great deal to memory. The whole Essay on Man he could recite verbatim before lie was fourteen years old. A habit of attentive exclusive devotion to the subject before him, aided by a wonderful memory, fixed everything deeply in his mind. It is this art, or talent, or genius, that works the miracles we read and behold. He had a great taste, too, for devotional poetry : Watts' Psalms and Hymns he committed to memory, not as a religious task, but as a pleasure. Nor was he less fond of, or less acquainted with, the sublime poetry of the Bible. Evidence of this is found everywhere in his works : for there is scarcely a speech or production of his that does not contain ideas or expressions, the types of which may be found in that book.

When he had attained his fourteenth year, his father took an important and decisive step with him. On the 25th day of May, 1796, Ebenezer Webster mounted his horse, put his son on another and proceeded with him to Exeter. He there placed him in Phillip's academy, then under the care of Dr. Benjamin Abbot, its well-known and respected President. The change was very great to a boy, who had never been from home before, and who now found himself among some ninety other boys, — a stranger among strangers, — all of whom had probably seen more of the world, and assumed to know so much more of it, than himself. But he was not long in reconciling himself to the change, and to his new duties. He was immediately put to English grammar, writing and arithmetic. A class-mate of his has informed me that he mastered the principles and philosophy of the first, between May and

12 CHAPTRR I.

October of that year ; and that in the other studies he made respectable progress ; in the autumn he commenced the study of the Latin language ; his first exercises in which were recited to Joseph Stevens Buckminster, who was acting (in some college vacation, I think) as assistant to Dr. Abbott,

It may appear somewhat singular that the greatest orator of modern times should have evinced in his boyhood the strongest antipathy to public declamation. This fact, however, is established by his own words, which have recently appeared in print. " I believe," says Mr. Webster, " I made tolerable progress in most branches, which I attended to, while in this school ; but there was one thing I could not do. I could not make a declamation. I could not speak before the school. The kind and excellent Buckminster sought especially to persuade me to perforin the exercise of declamation, like other boys, but I could not do it. Many a piece did I commit to memory, and recite and rehearse in my own room, over and over again ; yet when the day came, when the school collected to hear declamations, when my name was called, and I saw all eyes turned to my seat, I could not raise myself from it. Sometimes the instructors frowned, sometimes they smiled. Mr. Buckminster always pressed and entreated, most winningly, that I would venture. But I never could command sufficient resolution." Such diffidence of its own powers may be natural to genius, nervously fearful of being unable to reach that ideal which it proposes as the only full consummation of its wishes. It is fortunate, however, for the age, fortunate for all ages, that Mr. Webster by determined will and frequent trial overcame this moral incapacity — as his great prototype, the Grecian orator, subdued his physical defect.

He remained at the Exeter academy but a few months ; accomplishing in these few months, however, the work of years to some. In February, 1797, his father placed him under the tuition of the Rev. Samuel Woods, in Boscawen ; of whom his pupil always speaks in terms of affection and respect. He boarded in his family ; and I have heard him say that Mr. Woods' whole charge for instruction, board, &c., was but one dollar per week. We pay much dearer now for much less.

It was on their way to the house of Mr. Woods that his father first opened to him his design of sending him to college — a purpose that seemed to him impossible to be fulfilled. It was so much more extravagant than his most extravagant hopes. It had never entertained his mind a moment. A collegiate education in those days was something of far greater importance than in these, when the ability to command it is so general. It made a marked man of thousands. It gave the fortunate graduate at once position and influence ; and, if not genius, or eminent ability, supplied or concealed the want thereof. The alumnus surveyed life from an eminence, and could aspire to its chiefest honors by a kind of prescriptive right.

Most grateful to his father for the prospect held out through his self-sacrificing devotion, Mr. Webster applied himself to his studies with even increased ardor. All that Mr. Woods could teach he learnt. Among other books, he read Virgil and Cicero, both of whom he faithfully studied, the latter he warmly admired. Of the Latin classics, I presume, there is not one so familiarly known to Mr. Webster as Cicero. It may seem a little strange, indeed, that with all his early, eager, and constant study of Home's greatest orator, he should not have imitated unconsciously his manner of expression or thought. He much more resembles Demosthenes, in vigor and terseness of expression, and in copious vehemence ; whose works, in the meanwhile, he never so completely mastered.

At Boscawen, Mr. Webster was fortunate to find another circulating library, the volumes of which he fully appreciated. It was in this library, he met, for the first time, Don Quixote, in English. " I began to read it," (I have heard him say,) " and it is literally true that I never closed my eyes till I had finished it ; nor did I lay it down any time for five minutes ; so great was the power of this extraordinary book on my imagination."

In the summer of this year, August, 1797, he entered Dartmouth College, as a freshman.

His college life, it can be easily believed, was not an idle one. With such a desire for the acquisition of all kinds of knowledge, the danger to be apprehended was, he would undertake too much rather than too little ; that his reading would be too miscellaneous, and that he would acquire, therefrom, habits of mental carelessness. From the testimony of his intimates in college, it is known that he read constantly.

Besides a regular attention to the prescribed studies of his class, he devoted himself to the acquisition of whatever was useful in English history, or graceful and becoming in English literature. He superintended also the publication of a little weekly newspaper, making selections for it from books and periodicals, and contributing, occasionally, an editorial of his own. These were, perhaps, the first of his productions ever published. I know not if they are to be met with now. He delivered some addresses while in college, before literary societies, which also were published.

Ezekiel Webster — the sole brother of Daniel of the whole blood — was destined by his father to remain at home and carry on the farm. But he had aspirations beyond this, and so had his brother for him. Accordingly, when Daniel returned home on a visit in his sophomore year, in the spring of '99, he held serious consultation with his brother Ezekiel, in relation to his wishes. It was resolved between them, that Ezekiel too should go to college, and that Daniel should be the organ of communication with their father on the subject. He lost no time in opening the negotiation, and experienced no great difficulty iu obtaining the consent of his father, who lived only for his children, to their design. The result was that in about ten days, Mr. Webster had gone back to college, having first seen his brother bid adieu to the farm, and place himself in school under a teacher in Latin. Soon afterwards Ezekiel went to Mr. Woods, and remained with him till he was fitted for college. In March, 1801, his father carried him to college, where he joined the Freshman class.

He had not great quickness of apprehension nor vivacity of intellect, and was not therefore early estimated at his full value. But he had a strong mind, great powers of observation, and memory. He acquired slowly but safely. Not fluent of speech, he was correct always in language and thought. Few excelled him in clearness or vigor of style, none in argumentative ability. He wanted but opportunity to have been a great man.

He fell dead, while arguing a cause in Concord, New Hampshire, in 1829. A handsome monument was erected to his memory in Boscawen, where he was buried.

Mr. Webster, while in college, during the winter vacations, kept school, to pay the collegiate expenses of his brother as well as his own. Being graduated in August, 1801, he immediately entered Mr. Thompson's office in Salisbury, as a student of law, and remained there till January following. The res angusta domi seemed then to require that he should go somewhere and do something to earn a little money. An application was at this time made to him from Fryeburg, Maine, to take charge of a school there. He accepted the ofler, mounted his horse, and commenced his labors on reaching Fryeburg. His salary was $350 per annum, all of which he saved ; as he made besides a sum sufficient to pay his board and other necessary expenses, by acting as assistant to the Register of Deeds for the County, to whose chirography there was the one objection of illegibility. The ache, is not yet out of his fingers — I have heard Mr. Webster say — which so much writing caused them.

In Fryeburg, he found also a circulating library, which he ran through. Here he borrowed and read for the first time Blackstone's Commentaries. Among other mental exercises, he committed to memory Mr. Ames' celebrated speech on the British Treaty.

In September, 1802, he returned to Mr. Thompson's office, in which he remained till February, 1804. Mr. Thompson was an excellent man and a respectable lawyer ; but he did not understand how to make the study of the law either agreeable or instructive. He put his students to study after the old fashion, that is, the hardest books first. Coke's Littleton was the book in those days upon which pupils were broken in, — which is like teaching arithmetic, by beginning with diferential calculus. " A boy of twenty," says Mr. Webster, " with no previous knowledge on such subjects cannot understand Coke. It is folly to set him upon such an author. There are propositions in Coke so abstract, and distinctions so nice, and doctrines embracing so many conditions and qualifications, that it requires an effort not only of a mature mind, but of a mind both strong and mature, to understand him. Why disgust and discourage a boy by telling him he must break through into his profession through such a wall as this ?"

Mr. Webster soon laid aside Coke till " a more convenient season," and, in the meanwhile, took up other more plain, easy, and intelligible authors.

While not engaged in the study of the law, he occupied himself with the Latin classics. He added greatly to what acquisitions he had made in the language, while in college reading Sallust, Csesar, and Horace. Some odes of the latter, which he translated into English, were published.

But books were not at this time of his life, as they never have been, Mr. Webster's sole study. He then was fond, and has been through life, of the manly field sports, — fishing, shooting and riding. These brought him into near communion with Nature and himself; supplied him with the material and opportunity for thought; made him contemplative, logical and earnest. At a subsequent period of his life, he found that the solitary rides he was wont to indulge in afforded him many an edifying day. The great argument in the Dartmouth College case was principally arranged in a tour he made from Boston to Barnstable and back. John Adams' speech before the Philadelphia Convention in '76, was composed by Mr. Webster, while taking a drive in a New England chaise. His favorite sport of angling gave him many a favorable opportunity for composition. The address for Bunker Hill (for instance) was all planned out even to many of its best passages, in Mars/ijpee Brook-* the orator catching trout and elaborating sentences, at the same time.