CHAPTER XXI.
WHY DANIEL WAS SENT TO CONGRESS
Even in his Sophomore year at college Daniel had taken a considerable interest in public affairs, as might readily be shown by extracts from his private correspondence. This interest continued after he entered upon the practice of the law, but up to the period of his election to Congress he had never filled a public office. It is generally the case with our public men that they serve one or more preliminary terms in one or both branches of the State Legislature, thus obtaining a practical knowledge of parliamentary proceedings. This was not the case with Mr. Webster. His public career would probably have been still further postponed but for the unfortunate state of our relations with England and France for some years preceding the war of 1812.
I can only allude very briefly to the causes which had almost annihilated our commerce and paralyzed our prosperity. Both England and France had been guilty of aggressions upon our commercial rights, and the former government especially had excited indignation by its pretended right to search American vessels, for British seamen and deserters. This was intensified by the retaliatory order of Napoleon, issued Dec. 17, 1807, known as the Milan Décrets, in accordance with which every vessel, of whatever nationality, that submitted to be searched, forfeited its neutral character, and even neutral vessels sailing between British ports were declared lawful prizes. Thus America was between two fires, and there seemed to be small chance of escape for any. Moreover, Great Britain interdicted all trade by neutrals between ports not friendly to her, and the United States was one of the chief sufferers from the extraordinary assumptions of the two hostile powers.
To save our vessels from depredation President Jefferson recommended what is known as the Embargo, which prevented the departure of our vessels from our own ports, and thus of course suspended our commercial relations with the rest of the world. The Embargo was never a popular measure, and its effects were felt to be widely injurious. I do not propose to discuss the question, but merely to state that in 1808 Mr. Webster published a pamphlet upon the Embargo, and, as his biographer claims, this must be regarded as his first appearance in a public character. I must refer such of my readers as desire more fully to understand the condition of public affairs and the part that the young lawyer took therein to the first volume of Mr. Curtis’s memoir.
It may be stated here, however, to explain the special interest which he felt in the matter, that Portsmouth, as a seaport, was largely affected by the suspension of American commerce, and its citizens felt an interest easily explained in what was so disastrous to their business prosperity.
On the Fourth of July, 1812, Mr. Webster delivered by invitation an oration before the “Washington Benevolent Society,” of Portsmouth, in which he discussed in a vigorous way the policy of the government, which he did not approve. Sixteen days before Congress had declared war against England. To this war Mr. Webster was opposed. Whatever grievances the government may have suffered from England, he contended that there was “still more abundant cause of war against France.” Moreover America was not prepared for war. The navy had been suffered to fall into neglect during Jefferson’s administration, until it was utterly insufficient for the defense of our coasts and harbors.
On this point he says: “If the plan of Washington had been pursued, and our navy had been suffered to grow with the growth of our commerce and navigation, what a blow might at this moment be struck, and what protection yielded, surrounded, as our commerce now is, with all the dangers of sudden war! Even as it is, all our immediate hopes of glory or conquest, all expectation of events that shall gratify the pride or spirit of the nation, rest on the gallantry of that little remnant of a navy that has now gone forth, like lightning, at the beck of Government, to scour the seas.
“It will not be a bright page in our history which relates the total abandonment of all provision for naval defense by the successors of Washington. Not to speak of policy and expediency, it will do no credit to the national faith, stipulated and plighted as it was to that object in every way that could make the engagement solemn and obligatory. So long as our commerce remains unprotected, and our coasts and harbors undefended by naval and maritime means, the essential objects of the Union remain unanswered, and the just expectation of those who assented to it, unanswered.
“A part of our navy has been suffered to go to entire decay; another part has been passed, like an article of useless lumber, under the hammer of the auctioneer. As if the millennium had already commenced, our politicians have beaten their swords into plowshares. They have actually bargained away in the market essential means of national defense, and carried the product to the Treasury. Without loss by accident or by enemies the second commercial nation in the world is reduced to the limitation of being unable to assert the sovereignty of its own seas, or to protect its navigation in sight of its own shores. What war and the waves have sometimes done for others, we have done for ourselves. We have taken the destruction of our marine out of the power of fortune, and richly achieved it by our own counsels.”
This address made a profound impression, voicing as it did the general public feeling in New Hampshire on the subjects of which it treated. It led to an assembly of the people of Rockingham County a few weeks later, called to prepare a memorial to the President protesting against the war. To this convention Mr. Webster was appointed a delegate, and it was he who was selected to draft what has been since known as the “Rockingham Memorial.”
One of the most noteworthy passages in this memorial—noteworthy because it is an early expression of his devotion to the Union—I find quoted by Mr. Curtis, and I shall follow his lead in transferring it to my pages.
“We are, sir, from principle and habit attached to the Union of these States. But our attachment is to the substance, and not to the form. It is to the good which this Union is capable of producing, and not to the evil which is suffered unnaturally to grow out of it. If the time should ever arrive when this Union shall be holden together by nothing but the authority of law; when its incorporating, vital principles shall become extinct; when its principal exercises shall consist in acts of power and authority, not of protection and beneficence; when it shall lose the strong bond which it hath hitherto had in the public affections; and when, consequently, we shall be one, not in interest and mutual regard, but in name and form only—we, sir, shall look on that hour as the closing scene of our country’s prosperity.
“We shrink from the separation of the States as an event fraught with incalculable evils, and it is among our strongest objections to the present course of measures that they have, in our opinion, a very dangerous and alarming bearing on such an event. If a separation of the States ever should 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; when a small and heated majority in the Government, taking counsel of their passions, and not of their reason, contemptuously disregarding the interests and perhaps stopping the mouths of a large and respectable minority, shall by hasty, rash and ruinious measures, threaten to destroy essential rights, and lay waste the most important interests.
“It shall be our most fervent supplication to Heaven to avert both the event and the occasion; and the Government may be assured that the tie that binds us to the Union will never be broken by us.”
Even my young readers will be struck by the judicial calmness, the utter absence of heated partisanship, which mark the extracts I have made, and they will recall the passage well known to every schoolboy—the grand closing passage of the reply to Hayne.
As regards style it will be seen that, though yet a young man, Mr. Webster had made a very marked advance on the Fourth of July address which he delivered while yet a college-student. He was but thirty years old when the memorial was drafted, and in dignified simplicity and elevation of tone it was worthy of his later days. The young lawyer, whose time had hitherto been employed upon cases of trifling moment in a country town, had been ripening his powers, and expanding into the intellectual proportions of a statesman. It was evident at any rate that his neighbors thought so, for he was nominated as a Representative to the Thirteenth Congress, in due time elected, and, as has already been stated, he first took his seat at a special session called by the President on the 24th of May, 1813.
It was in this Congress that Daniel Webster made the acquaintance of two eminent men, with whose names his own is now most frequently associated—Henry Clay, of Kentucky, and John C. Calhoun, of South Carolina.
CHAPTER XXII.
MR. WEBSTER AS A MEMBER OF CONGRESS
Before I proceed to speak of Mr. Webster’s Congressional career, I will make room for a professional anecdote, which carries with it an excellent lesson for my young readers.
I find it in Harvey’s “Reminiscences,” already alluded to.
“In the first years of his professional life a blacksmith called on him for advice respecting the title to a small estate bequeathed to him by his father. The terms of the will were peculiar, and the kind of estate transmitted was doubtful. An attempt had been made to annull the will. Mr. Webster examined the case, but was unable to give a definite opinion upon the matter for want of authorities. He looked through the law libraries of Mr. Mason and other legal gentlemen for authorities, but in vain. He ascertained what works he needed for consultation, and ordered them from Boston at an expense of fifty dollars. He spent the leisure hours of some weeks in going through them. He successfully argued the case when it came on for trial, and it was decided in his favor.
“The blacksmith was in ecstasies, for his little all had been at stake. He called for his attorney’s bill. Mr. Webster, knowing his poverty, charged him only fifteen dollars, intending to suffer the loss of money paid out, and to lose the time expended in securing a verdict. Years passed away, and the case was forgotten, but not the treasured knowledge by which it was won. On one of his journeys to Washington Mr. Webster spent a few days in New York City. While he was there Aaron Burr waited on him for advice in a very important case pending in the State court. He told him the facts on which it was founded. Mr. Webster saw in a moment that it was an exact counterpart to the blacksmith’s will case. On being asked if he could state the law applicable to it he at once replied that he could.
“He proceeded to quote decisions bearing upon the case, going back to the time of Charles II. As he went on with his array of principles and authorities, all cited with the precision and order of a table of contents, Mr. Burr arose in astonishment and asked with some warmth,
“‘Mr. Webster, have you been consulted before in this case?’
“‘Most certainly not,’ he replied. ‘I never heard of your case till this evening.’
“‘Very well,’ said Mr. Burr; ‘proceed.’
“Mr. Webster concluded the rehearsal of his authorities, and received from Mr. Burr the warmest praise of his profound knowledge of the law, and a fee large enough to remunerate him for all the time and trouble spent on the blacksmith’s case.”
I have recorded this anecdote, partly to show the tenacity of Mr. Webster’s memory, which, after a lapse of years, enabled him so exactly to repeat the authorities he had relied upon in an old case; partly, also, to show how thoroughly he was wont to prepare himself, even in cases where he could expect but a small fee. In this case, not only did he subsequently turn his knowledge to profitable account, but he lost nothing by the kindness of heart which prompted him to place his best powers at the service of an humble client. My young readers will find that knowledge never comes amiss, but, in the course of a long and sometimes of a short life, we are generally able to employ it for our advantage.
I come back to Daniel Webster’s entrance upon Congressional duties.
He had reached the age of thirty-one, while Henry Clay, who occupied the Speaker’s chair, was five years older. Mr. Clay came forward much earlier in public life than his great rival. Though but thirty-six, he had twice been a member of the United States Senate, being in each case elected to serve the balance of an unexpired term. He had been a member of the Legislature of Kentucky, and Speaker of that body, and now he was serving, not for the first time, as Speaker of the U. S. House of Representatives. John C. Calhoun was the leading member of the House, and he as well as Mr. Clay favored the policy of the administration, both being supporters of the war. Other distinguished members there were, among them John McLean, of Ohio; Charles J. Ingersoll, of Pennsylvania; William Gaston, of North Carolina, and Felix Grundy, of Tennessee.
Though Mr. Webster was a new member he was placed upon the Committee on Foreign Relations, at that time of course the most important position which could have been assigned him. This may be inferred from the names of his fellow members. He found himself associated with Calhoun, Grundy, Jackson, Fish and Ingersoll. He was, as I have stated, not in favor of the war, but since it had been inaugurated he took the ground that it should be vigorously prosecuted. He did not long remain silent, but took his stand both in the committee and in the House as one who thought the war inexpedient.
It does not fall within the scope of this volume to detail the steps which the young member took in order to impress his views upon his fellow members; but, as a specimen of his oratory at that time, and because it will explain them sufficiently, I quote from a speech made by him in the regular session during the year 1814:
“The humble aid which it would be in my power to render to measures of Government shall be given cheerfully, if Government will pursue measures which I can conscientiously support. Badly as I think of the original grounds of the war, as well as of the manner in which it has hitherto been conducted, if even now, failing in an honest and sincere attempt to procure just and honorable peace, it will return to measures of defence and protection such as reason and common sense and the public opinion all call for, my vote shall not be withholden from the means. Give up your futile object of invasion. Extinguish the fires that blaze on your inland frontier. Establish perfect safety and defense there by adequate force. Let every man that sleeps on your soil sleep in security. Stop the blood that flows from the veins of unarmed yeomanry and women and children. Give to the living time to bury and lament their dead in the quietness of private sorrow.
“Having performed this work of beneficence and mercy on your inland border, turn and look with the eye of justice and compassion on your vast population along the coast. Unclinch the iron grasp of your Embargo. Take measures for that end before another sun sets upon you. With all the war of the enemy on your commerce, if you would cease to war on it yourselves you would still have some commerce. Apply that revenue to the augmentation of your navy. That navy will in turn protect your commerce. Let it no longer be said that not one ship of force, built by your hands, yet floats upon the ocean.
“Turn the current of your efforts into the channel which national sentiment has already worn broad and deep to receive it. A naval force, competent to defend your coast against considerable armaments, to convoy your trade, and perhaps raise the blockade of your rivers, is not a chimera. It may be realized. If, then, the war must be continued, go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for maritime rights, go to the theater where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water’s edge. They are lost in attachment to national character on the element where that character is made respectable. In protecting naval interests by naval means, you will arm yourselves with the whole power of national sentiment, and may command the whole abundance of the national resources. In time you may enable yourselves to redress injuries in the place where they may be offered, and, if need be, to accompany your own flag throughout the world with the protection of your own cannon.”
My young reader, without knowing much about the matter at issue, will nevertheless be struck with the statesmanlike character of these utterances. It is not often that a new member of Congress is able to discuss public matters with such fullness of knowledge, and in a tone of such dignity and elevation of sentiment. His fellow legislators were not long in learning that the new member from New Hampshire was no raw novice, but a publicist of remarkable ability, knowledge, and a trained orator. In a discussion which sprang up between Mr. Webster and Mr. Calhoun, the conceded leader of the House, the honors were at least divided, if Mr. Webster did not win the larger portion.
While the young man was thus coming into national prominence his residence in Washington helped him in a professional way. He began to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, being employed in several prize cases. Judge Marshall was at that time chief justice, and of him the young lawyer formed an exalted opinion. “I have never seen a man,” he writes, “of whose intellect I had a higher opinion.”
On the 18th of April, 1814, the session of Congress terminated, and Mr. Webster undertook the long and toilsome journey from Washington to his New Hampshire home. It was not the same home which he left when he was called a year earlier to attend the special session. His house and library were destroyed by fire, and though the loss was but six thousand dollars, it was a severe set-back to a lawyer whose professional income had never exceeded two thousand dollars. He bore the loss, however, with equanimity, since it involved only a loss of money. His talent and education remained, and these were to earn him hundreds of thousands of dollars in the years to come.
CHAPTER XXIII.
JOHN RANDOLPH AND WILLIAM PINKNEY
Mr. Webster served four years in Congress as a Representative from his native State. He had reached the age of thirty-one when he entered the public service, and therefore, though not the youngest, was among the youngest members of that important body. As we have seen, though without previous legislative experience, he advanced at once to a leading place and took prominent part in all the discussions of important questions, his opinions always carrying weight. He was opposed to the administration and its war policy, but he opposed it in no factious spirit.
He distinguished himself particularly by his speeches on finance. When a bill was proposed to establish a national bank, with a capital of fifty millions of dollars, of which only four millions was to be specie, and the balance to consist of Government stocks, then very much depreciated, Mr. Webster rode forty miles on horseback from Baltimore to Washington, in order to defeat what he regarded as a scheme to create an irredeemable paper currency, fraught with widespread mischief to the country. The vigorous speech which he made defeated the bill. It is interesting to record that Mr. Calhoun, when the vote was announced, walked across the floor of the House to where Mr. Webster stood, and holding out both hands to him, told him that he should rely upon his help to prepare a new bill of a proper character. When this assurance was given Mr. Calhoun’s feelings were so stirred that he burst into tears, so deeply did he feel the importance of some aid for the Government, which he felt with Mr. Webster’s co-operation might be secured.
It may be stated here that these great men cherished for each other mutual respect and friendship, widely as they differed on some points. The Senator from South Carolina showed this in a notable manner when he arose from his deathbed (his death followed in a few days), and sat in his place to listen to his great friend’s seventh of March speech, in 1850, looking a wan and spectral auditor from the next world.
The battle for sound money which Mr. Webster fought then has been renewed in later years, as some of my young readers may be aware. In his speeches he showed a thorough mastery of the subject which he discussed. He showed the evils of a debased coin, a depreciated paper currency, and a depressed and falling public credit, and it is largely due to his efforts that the country emerged from its chaotic financial condition with as little injury as it did.
I have spoken of Mr. Webster’s relations then and later to Mr. Calhoun. Among the members of the House representing Virginia was the famous John Randolph, of Roanoke, with whom it was difficult for any one to keep on good terms. He saw fit to take offense at something said by Mr. Webster, and sent him a challenge. Webster was never charged by any man with physical cowardice, but he thoroughly despised the practice of dueling. He was not to be coerced into fighting by any fear that cowardice would be imputed to him. This may seem to us a very trivial matter, but seventy years ago and even much later, it required considerable moral courage to refuse a challenge. I place on record, as likely to interest my readers, the letter in which Mr. Webster declined to give satisfaction in the manner demanded.
“Sir: For having declined to comply with your demand yesterday in the House for an explanation of words of a general nature used in debate, you now ‘demand of me that satisfaction which your insulted feelings require,’ and refer me to your friend, Mr.–, I presume, as he is the bearer of your note, for such arrangements as are usual.
“This demand for explanation you, in my judgment, as a matter of right were not entitled to make on me, nor were the temper and style of your own reply to my objection to the sugar tax of a character to induce me to accord it as a matter of courtesy.
“Neither can I, under the circumstances of the case, recognize in you a right to call me to the field to answer what you may please to consider an insult to your feelings.
“It is unnecessary for me to state other and obvious considerations growing out of this case. It is enough that I do not feel myself bound at all times and under any circumstances to accept from any man who shall choose to risk his own life an invitation of this sort, although I shall be always prepared to repel in a suitable manner the aggression of any man who may presume upon such a refusal.
“Your obedient servant,
“Daniel Webster.”
Mr. Randolph did not press the matter nor did he presume upon the refusal, but the matter was adjusted amicably. Nearly forty years later a similar reply to a challenge was sent by a later Senator from Massachusetts, Henry Wilson, and in both cases the resolute character of the men was so well known that no one dared to taunt the writer with cowardice.
While upon the subject of physical courage I am tempted to transcribe from Mr. Harvey’s interesting volume an anecdote in which the famous lawyer, William Pinkney, is prominently mentioned. In answer to the question whether he ever carried pistols, Mr. Webster answered:
“No, I never did. I always trusted to my strong arm, and I do not believe in pistols. There were some Southern men whose blood was hot and who got very much excited in debate, and I used myself to get excited, but I never resorted to any such extremity as the use of pistols.
“The nearest I ever came to a downright row was with Mr. William Pinkney. Mr. Pinkney was the acknowledged head and leader of the American bar. He was the great practitioner at Washington when I was admitted to practice in the courts there. I found Mr. Pinkney by universal concession the very head of the bar—a lawyer of extraordinary accomplishments and withal a very wonderful man. But with all that there was something about him that was very small. He did things that one would hardly think it possible that a gentleman of his breeding and culture and great weight as a lawyer could do.
“He was a very vain man. One saw it in every motion he made. When he came into court he was dressed in the very extreme of fashion—almost like a dandy. He would wear into the court-room his white gloves that had been put on fresh that morning and that he never put on again. He usually rode from his house to the Capitol on horseback, and his overalls were taken off and given to his servant who attended him. Pinkney showed in his whole appearance that he considered himself the great man of that arena, and that he expected deference to be paid to him as the acknowledged leader of the bar. He had a great many satellites—men of course much less eminent than himself at the bar—who flattered him, and employed him to take their briefs and argue their cases, they doing the work and he receiving the greatest share of the pay. That was the position that Mr. Pinkney occupied when I entered the bar at Washington.
“I was a lawyer who had my living to get, and I felt that although I should not argue my cases as well as he could, still, if my clients employed me they should have the best ability I had to give them, and I should do the work myself. I did not propose to practice law in the Supreme Court by proxy. I think that in some pretty important cases I had Mr. Pinkney rather expected that I should fall into the current of his admirers and share my fees with him. This I utterly refused to do.
“In some important case (I have forgotten what the case was) Mr. Pinkney was employed to argue it against me. I was going to argue it for my client myself. I had felt that on several occasions his manner was, to say the least, very annoying and aggravating. My intercourse with him, so far as I had any, was always marked with great courtesy and deference. I regarded him as the leader of the American bar; he had that reputation and justly. He was a very great lawyer. On the occasion to which I refer, in some colloquial discussion upon various minor points of the case he treated me with contempt. He pooh-poohed, as much as to say it was not worth while to argue a point that I did not know anything about, that I was no lawyer. I think he spoke of ‘the gentleman from New Hampshire.’ At any rate, it was a thing that everybody in the court-house, including the judges, could not fail to observe. Chief Justice Marshall himself was pained by it. It was very hard for me to restrain my temper and keep cool, but I did so, knowing in what presence I stood. I think he construed my apparent humility into a want of what he would call spirit in resisting, and as a sort of acquiescence in his rule.
“However the incident passed, th