Select Speeches of Daniel Webster | Page 3

his name with this edition
of Mr. Webster's work.
A. J. G.
Brookline, November, 1892.

Introduction.

Mr. Webster approaches as nearly to the beau ideal of a republican
Senator as any man that I have ever seen in the course of my life;
worthy of Rome or Venice rather than of our noisy and wrangling
generation.-- Hallam.
Coleridge used to say that he had seldom known or heard of any great
man who had not much of the woman in him. Even so the large
intellect of Daniel Webster seemed to be coupled with all softer
feelings; and his countenance and bearing, at the very first, impressed
me with this. A commanding brow, thoughtful eyes, and a mouth that
seemed to respond to all humanities. He deserves his fame, I am
sure.--John Kenyon.
He is a magnificent specimen. You might say to all the world, "This is
our Yankee Englishman; such limbs we make in Yankee-land!" As a
parliamentary Hercules one would incline to back him at first sight
against all the extant world. The tanned complexion; that amorphous
craglike face; the dull black eyes under the precipice of brows, like dull
anthracite furnaces needing only to be _blown_; the mastiff mouth,
accurately closed; I have not traced so much of silent Berserkir rage
that I remember of in any other man.--Thomas Carlyle.
When the historian shall look back upon the first century of the
American Republic, the two names that will shine with most unfading
lustre and the serenest glory, high above all others, are Washington and
Webster.-- Professor Felton.
Consider the remarkable phenomenon of excellence in three unkindred,
one might have thought incompatible, forms of public speech,--that of
the forum, with its double audience of bench and jury, of the halls of
legislation, and of the most thronged and tumultuous assemblies of the
people. Consider, further, that this multiform eloquence, exactly as his
words fell, became at once so much accession to permanent literature in
the strictest sense,--solid, attractive, rich,--and ask how often in the
history of public life such a thing has been exemplified.--Rufus Choate.
The noblest monument to Daniel Webster is in his works. As a
repository of political truth and practical wisdom, applied to the affairs
of government, I know not where we shall find their equal. The works
of Burke naturally suggest themselves to the mind, as the only writings
in our language that can sustain the comparison.--Edward Everett.
He writes like a man who is thinking of his subject, and not of his style,

and thus he wastes no time upon the mere garb of his thoughts. His
style is Doric, not Corinthian. His sentences are like shafts hewn from
the granite of his own hills,--simple, massive, strong. We may apply to
him what Quinctilian says of Cicero, that a relish for his writings is
itself a mark of good taste.--George S. Hillard.
He taught the people of the United States, in the simplicity of common
understanding, the principles of the Constitution and government of the
country, and he wrought for them, in a style of matchless strength and
beauty, the literature of statesmanship. He made his language the very
household words of a nation. They are the library of the people. They
are the school-book of the citizen.--John D. Long.
Take him for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator this country
has ever known, but in the history of eloquence his name will stand
with those of Demosthenes and Cicero, Chatham and Burke.--Henry
Cabot Lodge.
It may be said that the style of Webster is pre-eminently distinguished
by manliness. The intellect and moral manliness of Webster underlies
all his great orations and speeches; and this plain force of manhood,
this sturdy grapple with every question that comes before his
understanding for settlement, leads him to reject all the meretricious
aids and ornaments of mere rhetoric, and is prominent, among the
many exceptional qualities of his large nature, which have given him a
high position among the prose- writers of his country as a consummate
master of English style.--Edwin P. Whipple.
His broad, wise statesmanship is to be the ample and refreshing shade,
his character the bright and breezy presence, in which all the members
of this great and illustrious Republic may meet and sit down and feast
together.-- H. N. Hudson.

Contents.

Defence of the Kennistons The Dartmouth College Case First
Settlement of New England The Bunker Hill Monument The Reply to
Hayne The Murder of Captain Joseph White The Constitution Not a
Compact Between Sovereign States Speech at Saratoga Eulogy on Mr.
Justice Story Biographical Notes

Defence of the Kennistons.

Gentlemen of the Jury,--It is true that the offence charged in the
indictment in this case is not capital; but perhaps this can hardly be
considered