Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster
14th and 19th United States Secretary of State
In office July 23, 1850 – October 24, 1852
President	Millard Fillmore
Preceded by	John Clayton
Succeeded by	Edward Everett
In office March 6, 1841 – May 8, 1843
President	William Henry Harrison John Tyler
Preceded by	John Forsyth
Succeeded by	Abel Upshur
United States Senator from Massachusetts
In office March 4, 1845 – July 22, 1850
Preceded by	Rufus Choate
Succeeded by	Robert Winthrop
In office June 8, 1827 – February 22, 1841
Preceded by	Elijah Mills
Succeeded by	Rufus Choate
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 1st district
In office March 4, 1823 – May 30, 1827
Preceded by	Benjamin Gorham
Succeeded by	Benjamin Gorham
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Hampshire's At-large district
In office March 4, 1813 – March 4, 1817
Preceded by	George Sullivan
Succeeded by	Arthur Livermore
Personal details
Born	(1782-01-18)January 18, 1782 Salisbury, New Hampshire, United States
Died	October 24, 1852(1852-10-24) (aged 70) Marshfield, Massachusetts, United States
Political party	Whig Party (1833–1852)
Other political affiliations	Federalist Party (Before 1828) National Republican Party (1828–1833)
Spouse(s)	Grace Fletcher Webster Caroline LeRoy Webster
Alma mater	Dartmouth College
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Disputed
Signature

Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was a leading American senator from Massachusetts during the period leading up to the Civil War. He first rose to regional prominence through his defense of New England shipping interests. Webster's increasingly nationalistic views, and his effectiveness as a speaker, made him one of the most famous orators and influential Whig leaders of the Second Party System. He was one of the nation's most prominent conservatives, leading opposition to Democrat Andrew Jackson and the Democratic Party. He was a spokesman for modernization, banking and industry, but not for the common people who composed the base of his enemies in Jacksonian Democracy. "He was a thoroughgoing elitist, and he reveled in it," says biographer Remini.^[1] During his 40 years in national politics, Webster served in the House of Representatives for 10 years (representing New Hampshire), in the Senate for 19 years (representing Massachusetts), and was appointed the United States Secretary of State under three presidents.

Webster took part in several key U.S. Supreme Court cases which established important constitutional precedents that bolstered the authority of the federal government. As Secretary of State, he negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, which established the definitive eastern border between the United States and Canada. Chiefly recognized for his Senate tenure, Webster was a key figure in the institution's "Golden days". Webster was considered the Northern member of a trio known as the "Great Triumvirate", with his colleagues Henry Clay from the West (Kentucky) and John C. Calhoun from the South (South Carolina). His "Reply to Hayne" in 1830 was regarded as "the most eloquent speech ever delivered in Congress."^[2]

As with his fellow Whig Henry Clay, Webster wanted to see the Union preserved and civil war averted. They both worked for compromises to stave off the sectionalism that threatened war between the North and the South. Webster tried and failed three times to become President of the United States. In 1957, a Senate Committee selected Webster as one of the five greatest U.S. Senators with Henry Clay, John C. Calhoun, Robert La Follette, and Robert Taft.^[3]

Early life

Daniel Webster was born on January 18, 1782, to Ebenezer and Abigail Webster (née Eastman) in Salisbury, New Hampshire, the present-day city of Franklin. He and his nine siblings grew up on their parents' farm, a small parcel of land granted to his father. His ancestors were among the early settlers of Salisbury.

Webster attended Phillips Exeter Academy, a preparatory school in Exeter, New Hampshire, before attending Dartmouth College. After he graduated from Dartmouth (Phi Beta Kappa), Webster was apprenticed to the lawyer Thomas W. Thompson in Salisbury. When his older brother Ezekiel's studies required Webster's support, the young man resigned from the law office and worked as a schoolteacher — as young men often did then, when public education consisted largely of subsidies to local schoolmasters. In 1802 Webster began as the headmaster of the Fryeburg Academy, Maine, where he served for one year.^[4] When Ezekiel's education could no longer be sustained, Webster returned to his apprenticeship.

In 1804 he left New Hampshire and got a position in Boston under the prominent attorney Christopher Gore. Clerking for Gore — who was involved in international, national, and state politics — Webster learned about many legal and political subjects and met numerous New England politicians.^[5] In 1805 Webster was admitted to the bar.

He returned to New Hampshire to set up a practice in Boscawen, in part to be near his ailing father. Webster became increasingly interested in politics; raised by an ardently Federalist father and taught by a predominantly Federalist-leaning faculty at Dartmouth, Webster, like many New Englanders, supported Federalism. He began to speak locally in support of Federalist causes and candidates.^[6] After his father's death in 1806, Webster handed over his practice to his older brother Ezekiel, who had by this time been admitted to the bar.

Webster moved to the larger town of Portsmouth in 1807, and opened a practice.^[7] During this time the Napoleonic Wars began to affect Americans, as Britain began to impress American sailors into their Navy. President Thomas Jefferson retaliated with the Embargo Act of 1807, stopping all trade to both Britain and France. As New England relied on commerce with the two nations, the region strongly opposed Jefferson's attempt at "peaceable coercion." Webster wrote an anonymous pamphlet attacking it.^[8]

Eventually the trouble with England escalated into the War of 1812. That same year, Daniel Webster gave an address to the Washington Benevolent Society, a speech that proved critical to his career. The speech condemned 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 speech was widely circulated and read throughout New Hampshire, and it led to Webster's 1812 appointment to the Rockingham Convention, an assembly that sought to declare formally the state's grievances with President James Madison and the federal government. 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, uncharacteristically for its chief architect, it 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."^[7]

Webster's efforts for New England Federalism, shipping interests, and war opposition resulted in his election to the House of Representatives in 1812, where he served two terms ending March 1817. He was an outspoken critic of the Madison administration and its wartime policies, denouncing its efforts at financing the war through paper money and (in "one of [his] most eloquent efforts")^[9] opposing Secretary of War James Monroe's conscription proposal.^[9] Notable in his second term was his support of the reestablishment of a stable specie-based national bank; but he opposed the tariff of 1816 (which sought to protect the nation's manufacturing interests) and House Speaker Henry Clay's American System.

This opposition was in accordance with his professed beliefs and those of most 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 [industry] over another."^[10][11] After his second term, Webster did not seek a third, choosing his law practice instead. 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 Boston.

Constitutional lawyer

Webster was hailed as the leading constitutional scholar of his generation and probably had more influence on the powerful Marshall Court than any other advocate had. Of the 223 cases he argued before the Supreme Court, he won about half of them. But, even more, Webster played an important role in eight of the most celebrated constitutional cases decided by the Court between 1801 and 1824. In many of these—particularly in Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819) and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)--the Supreme Court handed down decisions based largely on Webster's arguments. Marshall patterned some of his Court decisions after Webster's briefs, and Webster played a crucial role in helping many of the justices interpret matters of constitutional law. As a result many people began calling him the Great Expounder of the Constitution.^[12]

Webster had been highly regarded in New Hampshire since his days in Boscawen, and had been respected throughout the House during his service there. He came to national prominence, however, as counsel in a number of important Supreme Court cases.^[13] These cases remain major precedents in the Constitutional jurisprudence of the United States.

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 Democratic-Republican state legislature. The legislature had passed new laws converting Dartmouth into a state institution, by 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.^[14] New Hampshire argued that they, as successor in sovereignty to George III, who had chartered Dartmouth, had the right to revise the charter.

Webster argued Dartmouth College v. Woodward to the Supreme Court (with significant aid from Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith), invoking Article I, section 10 of the Constitution (the Contract Clause) against the State. The Marshall court, continuing with its history of limiting states' rights and reaffirming the supremacy of the Constitutional protection of contract, ruled in favor of Webster and Dartmouth 3–1. This decided that corporations did not, as many then held, have to justify their privileges by acting in the public interest, but were independent of the states.^[15]

Other notable appearances by Webster before the Supreme Court include his representation of James McCulloch (as cashier at the Baltimore branch of the Second Bank of the United States) in McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), the Cohens in Cohens v. Virginia (1821), and Thomas Gibbons in Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), cases similar to Dartmouth in the court's application of a broad interpretation of the Constitution and strengthening of the federal courts' power to constrain the states, which have since been used to justify wide powers for the federal government. Webster's handling of these cases made him one of the era's leading constitutional lawyers, as well as one of the most highly paid.^[16] Webster's growing prominence as a constitutional lawyer led to his election as a delegate to the 1820 Massachusetts Constitutional Convention. There he spoke in opposition to universal suffrage (for men), on the Federalist grounds that power naturally follows property, and the vote should be limited accordingly; but the constitution was amended against his advice.^[17] He also supported the (existing) districting of the State Senate so that each seat represented an equal amount of property.^[18]

Webster's performance at the convention furthered his reputation. Joseph Story (also a delegate at the convention) wrote to Jeremiah Mason following the convention saying "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."^[19] Webster also spoke at Plymouth commemorating the landing of the Pilgrims in 1620; his oration was widely circulated and read throughout New England. He was elected to the Eighteenth Congress in 1822, from Boston.

In his second term, Webster found Miles Bearden himself a leader of the fragmented House Federalists who had split following the failure of the secessionist-minded 1814 Hartford Convention that he avoided. Speaker Henry Clay made Webster chairman of the Judiciary Committee in an attempt to win his and the Federalists' support. His term of service in the House between 1822 and 1828 was marked by his legislative success at reforming the United States criminal code, and his failure at expanding the size of the Supreme Court. He largely supported the National Republican administration of John Quincy Adams, including Adams' candidacy in the highly contested election of 1824 and the administration's defense of treaty-sanctioned Creek Indian land rights against Georgia's expansionist claims.^[20]

While a Representative, Webster continued accepting speaking engagements in New England, most notably his oration on the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Bunker Hill (1825) where Lafayette laid the cornerstone of the new monument and his eulogies of John Adams and Thomas Jefferson (1826). With the support of a coalition of both Federalists and Republicans, Webster's record in the House and his celebrity as an orator led to his June 1827 election to the Senate from Massachusetts. His first wife, Grace, died in January 1828, and he married Caroline LeRoy in December 1829.

Senate

When Webster returned to the Senate from his wife's funeral in March 1828, he found the chamber considering a new tariff bill that sought to increase the duties on foreign manufactured goods on top of the increases of 1816 and 1824, 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."^[7] 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.

The passage of the tariff brought increased sectional tensions 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. While for a time the tensions increased by Calhoun's exposition lay beneath the surface, they burst forth when South Carolina Senator Robert Young Hayne opened the 1830 Webster–Hayne debate. By 1830, Federal land policy had long been an issue. The National Republican administration had held land prices high. According to Adams' Secretary of the Treasury Richard Rush, this served to provide the federal government with an additional source of revenue, but also to discourage westward migration that tended to increase wages through the increased scarcity of labor.^[21] Senator Hayne, in an effort to sway the west against the north and the tariff, seized upon a minor point in the land debate and accused the north of attempting to limit western expansion for their own benefit. As Vice President Calhoun was presiding officer over the Senate but could not address the Senate in business, James Schouler contended that Hayne was doing what Calhoun could not.^[22]

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 claiming 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 27, Webster gave his Second Reply to Hayne, in which 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 was later embodied in John C. Calhoun's 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 were brought into reality in 1832 when Calhoun's native South Carolina passed its Ordinance of Nullification, Webster supported President 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 eventually defused the crisis. Webster thought Clay's concessions were dangerous and would only further embolden the south and legitimize its tactics. Especially unsettling was 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." The usage of the word accede would, in his opinion, lead to the logical end of those states' right to secede.

At the same time, however, Webster, like Clay, opposed the economic policies of Andrew Jackson, the most famous of those being Jackson's campaign against the Second Bank of the United States (1816–1841) in 1832, an institution that held Webster on retainer as legal counsel and of whose Boston Branch he was the director. Clay, Webster, and a number of other former Federalists and National Republicans united as the Whig Party, in defense of the Bank against Jackson's intention to replace it. There was an economic panic in 1837, which converted Webster's heavy speculation in midwestern property into a personal debt from which Webster never recovered. His debt was exacerbated by his propensity for living "habitually beyond his means", lavishly furnishing his estate and giving away money with "reckless generosity and heedless profusion", in addition to indulging the smaller-scale "passions and appetites" of gambling and alcohol.^[23]

In 1836, Webster was one of four Whig Party candidates to run for the office of President, but he only managed to gain the support of Massachusetts. This was the first of three unsuccessful attempts at gaining the presidency. In 1839, the Whig Party nominated William Henry Harrison for president. Webster was offered the vice presidency, but he declined.

As Secretary of State

Following his victory in 1840, President Harrison appointed Webster to the post of Secretary of State in 1841, a post he retained under President John Tyler after the death of Harrison 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. Webster succumbed to Whig pressure in May 1843 and finally left the cabinet. Webster later served again as Secretary of State in President Millard Fillmore's administration from 1850 until 1852.

Later career

In 1845, he was re-elected to the Senate, where he opposed both the Texas Annexation and the resulting Mexican-American War for fear of its upsetting the delicate balance of slave and non-slave states. In the United States presidential election, 1848, he sought the Whig Party's nomination for the President but was beaten by the military hero Zachary Taylor. Webster was once again offered the Vice-Presidency, but he declined saying, "I do not propose to be buried until I am really dead and in my coffin."^[24] The Whig ticket won the election; Taylor died 16 months after the inauguration. This was the second time a President who offered Webster the chance to be Vice President died.

Compromise of 1850

The Compromise of 1850 was the Congressional effort led by Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas to compromise the sectional disputes that seemed to be headed toward civil war. On March 7, 1850, Webster gave one of his most famous speeches, later called the Seventh of March speech, characterizing himself "not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man but as an American..." In it he gave his support to the compromise, which included the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 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. The 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."^[25] Webster never recovered the loss of popularity he suffered in the aftermath of the Seventh of March speech.

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.

"Jury nullification" took effect as local juries acquitted men accused of violating the Fugitive Slave law. As Secretary of State Webster was a key supporter of the law, which he had endorsed in his famous Seventh of March speech, he wanted high profile convictions. The jury nullifications ruined his presidential aspirations and his last-ditch efforts to find a compromise between North and South. Webster led the prosecution when defendants were accused of rescuing Shadrach Minkins in 1851 from Boston officials who intended to return Minkins to his owner; the juries convicted none of the men. Webster tried to enforce a law that was extremely unpopular in the North, and his Whig Party passed over him again when they chose a presidential nominee in 1852.^[26]

State Department

Notable in this second tenure was the increasingly strained relationship between the United States and the Austrian Empire in the aftermath of what was seen by Austria as American interference in its rebellious Kingdom of Hungary (see Hungarian Revolution of 1848). This was especially manifest in the very warm welcome extended to the exiled Hungarian leader Lajos Kossuth in the US: his ship was greeted with a hundred-gun salute when it passed Jersey City and hundreds of thousands of people came to see him set foot in New York; heralded as the Hungarian Washington, he was given a congressional banquet and received at the White House and the House of Representatives. Webster himself wanted Kossuth's help in the upcoming presidential election, and spoke of "seeing the American Republican model develop in Hungary", although President Fillmore apologised to the Austrian chargé d'affaires for what he explained was an individual, unofficial opinion. However, as chief American diplomat, Webster did author the Hülsemann Letter, in which he defended what he believed to be America's right to take an active interest in the internal politics of Hungary, while still maintaining its neutrality.

Webster also advocated the establishment of commercial relations with Japan, going so far as to draft the letter that was to be presented to the Emperor Kōmei on President Fillmore's behalf by Commodore Matthew Perry on his 1852 voyage to Asia.

As Secretary of State Webster continued to strongly uphold the Compromise of 1850 and specifically the Fugitive Slave Law. In early 1851, when the anti-slavery Liberty Party was due to hold its state convention at Syracuse, New York, Webster sternly warned that the law would be enforced even "here in Syracuse in the midst of the next Anti-Slavery Convention.".^[27] Actually, during the conference William Henry, an escaped slave from Missouri and a resident of Syracuse, was duly arrested and was about to be sent back to his master, to which the abolitionists reacted by storming the jail and setting the fugitive slave free (see Jerry Rescue), motivated in part by the desire to defy Webster.

1852 election

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, "profound selfishness" in the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Though the Seventh of March speech was indeed warmly received throughout the south, he gained support only from New England and was a distant third behind General Winfield Scott, who received the nomination, and President Fillmore. A rump "Native American Party" put his name on the ballot without permission and he collected a few thousand votes, even though he died just before the election.^[28]

Death

Webster died on October 24, 1852 at his home in Marshfield, Massachusetts, after falling from his horse and suffering a crushing blow to the head, complicated by cirrhosis of the liver, which resulted in a cerebral hemorrhage.^[29] He is buried in the "Old Winslow Burial Ground" section of the Winslow Cemetery, near Marshfield. A day before he died, his best friend Peter Harvey had come to visit him, Harvey had stated that Webster looked as if he were suffering. Webster told Harvey "Be faithful friend, I shall be dead tomorrow."

His last words were: "I still live".

His son, Fletcher Webster, went on to serve as a Union Army infantry colonel in the Civil War that Webster tried to prevent. Fletcher Webster commanded the 12th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, and was killed in action on August 29, 1862, during the Second Battle of Bull Run.

Historical evaluations

Webster retains his high prestige in recent historiography. Baxter argues that his nationalistic view of the union as one and inseparable with liberty helped the union to try up over the states-rights Confederacy, making it his greatest contribution.^[30] However Bartlett, emphasizing Webster's private life, says his great oratorical achievements were in part undercut by his improvidence with money, his excessively opulent lifestyle, and his numerous conflict of interest situations.^[31] Remini points out that Webster's historical orations taught Americans their history before textbooks were widely available.^[32] Webster was godlike in his articulation of American nationalism, Remini agrees, but his negative traits ruined his presidential ambition. He lacked the necessary modesty and his overpowering desire for the White House, and his craving for money was unbecoming to a statesman of his caliber in a nation committed to republicanism and fearful of corruption.

"Godlike Dan" and "Black Dan"

Webster's "Reply to Hayne" in 1830 was generally regarded as "the most eloquent speech ever delivered in Congress," and was a stock exercise for oratory students for 75 years.^[2]

Ralph Waldo Emerson, who had criticized Webster following the Seventh of March address, remarked in the immediate aftermath of his death that Webster was "the completest man", and that "nature had not in our days or not since Napoleon, cut out such a masterpiece." Others like Henry Cabot Lodge and John F. Kennedy noted Webster's vices, especially the perpetual debt against which he, as Lodge reports, employed "checks or notes for several thousand dollars in token of admiration" from his friends. "This was, of course, utterly wrong and demoralizing, but Mr. Webster came, after a time, to look upon such transactions as natural and proper. [...] He seems to have regarded the merchants and bankers of State Street very much as a feudal baron regarded his peasantry. It was their privilege and duty to support him, and he repaid them with an occasional magnificent compliment."^[23]

Several historians suggest Webster failed to exercise leadership for any political issue or vision. Lodge describes (with the Rockingham Convention in mind) 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."^[33] Similarly, Arthur Schlesinger cites Webster's letter requesting retainers for fighting for the Bank, one of his most inveterate causes; he then asks how Webster could "expect the American people to follow him through hell or high water when he would not lead unless someone made up a purse for him?"^[34]

Webster has garnered respect and admiration for his Seventh of March speech in defense of the 1850 compromise measures that helped to delay the Civil War. In Profiles in Courage, Kennedy called Webster's defense of the compromise, despite the risk to his presidential ambitions and the denunciations he faced from the north, one of the "greatest acts of courageous principle" in the history of the Senate. Conversely, Seventh of March has been criticized by Lodge who contrasted the speech's support of the 1850 compromise with his 1833 rejection of similar measures. "While he was brave and true and wise in 1833," said Lodge, "in 1850 he was not only inconsistent, but that he erred deeply in policy and statesmanship" in his advocacy of a policy that "made war inevitable by encouraging slave-holders to believe that they could always obtain anything they wanted by a sufficient show of violence."^[35]

In 1851 Webster was elected an honorary member of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati.

More widely agreed upon, notably by both Senator Lodge and President Kennedy, is Webster's skill as an orator, with Kennedy praising Webster's "ability to make alive and supreme the latent sense of oneness, of union, that all Americans felt but few could express."^[36][37] Schlesinger, however, notes that he is also an example of the limitations of formal oratory: Congress heard Webster or Clay with admiration, but they rarely prevailed at the vote. Plainer speech and party solidarity were more effective, and Webster never approached Jackson's popular appeal.^[38]

Religious views

Conflicting opinions have been voiced as to his religion. The Unitarian Universalist Church, citing Unitarianism in America from 1902,^[39] claim him as their own. Another source, the 1856 biography The American Statesman: The Life and Character of Daniel Webster,^[40] proclaim him an avowed orthodox Trinitarian, baptized and raised in an Orthodox Congregational Church, and who died a member of the Episcopal Church. He is said to have expressed his belief in the Trinity; to a Unitarian who asked him how a man of his intellect could believe in the Trinity, he responded that it was because he believed though he did not "understand the arithmetic of heaven."

On U.S. Postage

Few famous Americans other than US Presidents are ever honored on US Postage more than once or twice, as Daniel Webster has been. One of the perhaps not so famous things Webster was noted for was to introduce legislation to produce pre-paid adhesive postage stamps for the U.S. Post Office, the first of which were issued in 1847. The first Webster postage stamp, bearing only Webster's portrait, was not issued until April 12 of 1870, 18 years after his death. The last issue honoring Webster (to date) was another commemorative stamp, a 37-cent stamp issued in 2002 . In all, Daniel Webster is honored on eleven different US Postage issues,^[41] more than most US Presidents.^[42][43]

Daniel Webster on U.S. postage issue of 1870 1890 issue 1894 issue 1898 issue 1902 issue 1932 issue

Legacy

Webster's legacy has been commemorated by numerous means:

Literature and film

• The popular short story, play and movie The Devil and Daniel Webster by Stephen Vincent Benét.

Schools and colleges

• Daniel Webster College a small four-year college located in Nashua, New Hampshire.
• A dormitory at Phillips Exeter Academy is named Webster Hall in honor of Daniel Webster, as is the fifth floor of Phillips Hall, which is known as the Daniel Webster Debate Room. It serves as the meeting spot for the Exeter Debate Team.
• The special collections library at Dartmouth College, located prominently on the campus Green, is named Webster Hall.
• Daniel Webster High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma
• Daniel Webster Middle School (formerly Daniel Webster Junior High School) in West Los Angeles, California
• Daniel Webster Middle School (formerly Daniel Webster Junior High School) in Waukegan, Illinois
• Daniel Webster Elementary School in Daly City, California
• Daniel Webster Elementary School in Dallas, Texas
• Daniel Webster Elementary School in San Francisco, California
• Daniel Webster Elementary School in Weehawken, New Jersey
• Daniel Webster Magnet School in New Rochelle, New York
• Daniel Webster Elementary School in his hometown of Marshfield, Massachusetts is named for him.

Postage stamps

• Webster appears on a total of eleven US Postage stamps, the first one issued in 1870.

In Washington, D.C.

• One of the two statues representing New Hampshire in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the United States Capitol.
• In 1957 a senatorial committee chaired by then-Senator John F. Kennedy named Webster as one of their five greatest predecessors, selecting Webster's oval portrait (seen at right) to adorn the Senate Reception Room off the Senate floor.^[44] In World War II, the United States liberty ship SS Daniel Webster was named in his honor.
• Webster Hall houses the dormitory and school for the Senate Page Program in Washington, DC. He had appointed the first Senate Page in 1839.

In Massachusetts

• A statue of Webster is in front of the Massachusetts State House in Boston, Massachusetts.
• Webster, Massachusetts was named in his honor by Samuel Slater on March 6, 1832.
• The current Daniel Webster Inn and Spa, in Sandwich, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod, replaced a 300-year-old tavern of the same name which burned in 1971. At the old building, Webster had a room reserved for his frequent visits to Cape Cod from 1815 to 1851 and the inn was later named in his honor.^[45]

In New Hampshire

• A statue of Webster is in front of the New Hampshire State House in Concord, New Hampshire.
• Mount Webster, a peak in New Hampshire's White Mountains
• Daniel Webster Council, a division of the Boy Scouts of America covering most of New Hampshire
• The Daniel Webster Family Home in West Franklin, New Hampshire, declared a National Historic Landmark in 1974
• The Daniel Webster Highway, several portions of US Route 3 in New Hampshire
• Webster, New Hampshire
• Webster Lake in Franklin, NH was renamed in his honor in 1851(formerly Clough Pond)
• The historic Daniel Webster farm, known as The Elms, located near Franklin, New Hampshire, was also the site of the New Hampshire Home for Orphans during 1871-1959. Threatened by development in 2004-05, the property was saved by last-minute efforts by the Webster Farm Preservation Association working with the Trust for Public Land.
• The Daniel Webster Scout Trail, a hiking trail, up Mount Madison leaving from Dolly Copp Campground. The trail was constructed by Scouts of the Daniel Webster Council in 1933 and is maintained by the Appalachian Mountain Club

In New York

• A bronze statue of Webster stands at 72nd Street in Central Park, New York City.

Other place names

• Webster County, Kentucky bears his name.^[46]
• Webster Parish in northwestern Louisiana is named for the statesman. Its seat of government is at Minden.
• Webster Township and Webster United Church of Christ of Dexter, Washtenaw County, Michigan, are named for Webster; he is purported to have contributed the sum of one hundred dollars to the church's construction in 1834.^[47]
• Webster, a town in Monroe County, New York, was named for him (outside of Rochester, pop. 40,000)
• Webster Groves, Missouri was named in his honor

Other

• The USS Daniel Webster, a U.S. Navy submarine

See also

• Daniel Webster Law Office
• History of the United States (1789–1849)
• Origins of the American Civil War
• Thomas-Webster Estate

Notes

Bibliography

Biographies

Specialized scholarly studies

Primary sources

External links

Find more about Daniel Webster at Wikipedia's sister projects
	Definitions and translations from Wiktionary
	Media from Commons
	Quotations from Wikiquote
	Source texts from Wikisource
	Textbooks from Wikibooks
	Learning resources from Wikiversity

• Daniel Webster Estate
• Daniel Webster: A Resource Guide from the Library of Congress
• Webster-Hayne debate, 1830 on nullification & tariff
• The works of Daniel Webster... 6 vol, 1853 edition
• The private correspondence of Daniel Webster ed. by Fletcher Webster. 2v 1857 edition
• Daniel Webster at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Daniel Webster at Find a Grave
• Works by Daniel Webster at Project Gutenberg
• Daniel Webster Speeches Collection from the University of Missouri Division of Special Collections and Rare Books

United States House of Representatives
Preceded by George Sullivan	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New Hampshire's at-large congressional district 1813–1817	Succeeded by Arthur Livermore
Preceded by Benjamin Gorham	Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts's 1st congressional district 1823–1827	Succeeded by Benjamin Gorham
United States Senate
Preceded by Elijah Mills	U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Massachusetts 1827–1841 Served alongside: Nathaniel Silsbee, John Davis	Succeeded by Rufus Choate
Preceded by Rufus Choate	U.S. Senator (Class 1) from Massachusetts 1845–1850 Served alongside: John Davis	Succeeded by Robert Winthrop
Political offices
Preceded by Samuel Smith	Chairperson of the Senate Committee on Finance 1833–1836	Succeeded by Silas Wright
Preceded by John Forsyth	U.S. Secretary of State Served under: William Henry Harrison, John Tyler 1841–1843	Succeeded by Abel Upshur
Preceded by John Clayton	U.S. Secretary of State Served under: Millard Fillmore 1850–1852	Succeeded by Edward Everett

v t e United States Secretaries of State Secretary of Foreign Affairs 1781–1789 R. Livingston Jay Secretary of State 1789–present Jefferson Randolph Pickering J. Marshall Madison Smith Monroe Adams Clay Van Buren E. Livingston McLane Forsyth Webster Upshur Calhoun Buchanan Clayton Webster Everett Marcy Cass Black Seward Washburne Fish Evarts Blaine Frelinghuysen Bayard Blaine Foster Gresham Olney Sherman Day Hay Root Bacon Knox Bryan Lansing Colby Hughes Kellogg Stimson Hull Stettinius Byrnes G. Marshall Acheson Dulles Herter Rusk Rogers Kissinger Vance Muskie Haig Shultz Baker Eagleburger Christopher Albright Powell Rice (Tenure) Clinton (Tenure) Kerry (Tenure)

v t e United States Senators from Massachusetts Class 1 Dalton Cabot Goodhue Mason Adams Lloyd Gore Ashmun Mellen Mills Webster Choate Webster Winthrop Rantoul Sumner Washburn Dawes Lodge, Sr. Butler Walsh Lodge, Jr. J. Kennedy Smith E. Kennedy Kirk Brown Warren Class 2 Strong Sedgwick Dexter Foster Pickering Varnum Otis Lloyd Silsbee Davis Bates Davis Everett Rockwell Wilson Boutwell Hoar Crane J. Weeks Walsh Gillett Coolidge Lodge, Jr. S. Weeks Saltonstall Brooke Tsongas Kerry Cowan Markey

v t e Chairmen of the United States Senate Committee on Finance Campbell Eppes Sanford Holmes Lowrie Smith Webster Wright Clay Evans Woodbury Calhoun Lewis Atherton Dickinson Hunter Pearce Fessenden Sherman Fessenden Sherman Morrill Bayard Morrill Voorhees Morrill Aldrich Penrose Simmons Penrose McCumber Smoot Harrison George Millikin George Millikin Byrd Long Dole Packwood Bentsen Moynihan Packwood Roth Baucus Grassley Baucus Grassley Baucus

v t e Members of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts 1st district Ames Dexter Goodhue Holten Sedgwick Skinner Sedgwick J Bacon Eustis Quincy Ward, Jr. Mason Gorham Webster Gorham Appleton Gorham Lawrence Fletcher Lawrence Winthrop Appleton Winthrop S Eliot Appleton Scudder T Eliot Hall T Eliot Buffinton Crapo Davis Randall Wright Lawrence Treadway Heselton Conte Olver Neal 2nd district Goodhue Foster W Lyman Sedgwick Ward W Lyman Shepard J Crowninshield Story Pickman Reed Pickering Silsbee Barstow B Crowninshield Choate Phillips Saltonstall King Rantoul Fay Crocker Buffinton Ames Harris Long Morse Gillett Churchill Bowles Kaynor Granfield Clason Furcolo Boland Neal McGovern 3rd district Gerry Bourne Coffin Lyman Mattoon Cutler Nelson Livermore White Pickering Nelson Varnum Nelson Osgood Cushing Abbott Duncan Edmands Damrell C Adams Thomas Rice Twichell Whiting Pierce Field Dean Field Ranney L Morse Andrew Walker Thayer R Hoar Washburn Thayer Wilder Paige Foss Casey Philbin Drinan Donohue Early Blute McGovern N Tsongas 4th district Sedgwick Dearborn Thatcher Wadsworth Foster Lincoln Hastings Varnum Richardson Dana Stearns Fuller Everett Hoar Parmenter Thompson Palfrey Thompson Sabine Walley Comins Rice Hooper Frost Abbott L Morse Collins J O'Neil Apsley Weymouth Tirrell Mitchell Wilder Winslow Stobbs Holmes Donohue Drinan Frank Kennedy III 5th district Partridge Bourne Freeman L Williams Dwight Ely Mills Lathrop Sibley Davis Lincoln Hudson Allen Appleton Burlingame Appleton Hooper Alley Butler Gooch Banks Bowman L Morse Hayden Banks Hoar Stevens Knox Ames J Rogers E Rogers F Morse Cronin P Tsongas Shannon Atkins Meehan N Tsongas Markey Clark 6th district Thatcher Leonard Reed Sr. J Smith Taggart Allen Locke Kendall Grennell Alvord Baker Ashmun G Davis Upham T Davis Alley Gooch Banks Butler Thompson Loring Stone Lovering Lodge Cogswell Moody Gardner Lufkin Andrew G Bates W Bates Harrington Mavroules Torkildsen Tierney 7th district Leonard Ward Leonard Bullock Bishop Mitchell Barker Baylies Turner Baylies Hulbert Henry Shaw Dwight Allen Grennell Briggs Rockwell Goodrich Banks Gooch Boutwell Brooks Esty Hoar Tarbox Butler Russell Stone Cogswell Everett Barrett Roberts Phelan Maloney W Connery L Connery Lane Macdonald Markey Capuano 8th district Grout Thatcher Ames Otis Eustis L Williams Green Gardner Green Reed Baylies Sampson Hobart Lathrop Bates Calhoun Adams Mann Wentworth Knapp Train Baldwin Hoar JMS Williams Warren Claflin Candler Russell Allen Greenhalge Stevens McCall Deitrick Dallinger Thayer Dallinger Healey Goodwin Macdonald O'Neill Kennedy II Capuano Lynch 9th district Varnum Bishop Dean Wheaton Reed Folger Reed Dwight Briggs Jackson Hastings H Williams Hale Fowler Little Dewitt Thayer Bailey Walker Washburn Crocker Hoar Rice T Lyman Ely Burnett Candler G Williams O'Neil Fitzgerald Conry Keliher Murray Roberts Fuller Underhill Luce Russell Luce Eliot Gifford Nicholson Keith McCormack Hicks Moakley Lynch Keating 10th district Goodhue Sewall Read Hastings Upham J Allen Brigham Wheaton Morton F Baylies Bailey HAS Dearborn W Baylies Borden H Williams Borden Burnell Grinnell Scudder Dickinson Chaffee Delano Dawes Crocker Stevens Seelye Norcross Rice Russell J Walker McEttrick Atwood Barrows Naphen McNary O'Connell Curley Murray Tague Fitzgerald Tague Douglass Tinkham Herter Curtis Martin Heckler Studds Delahunt Keating 11th district Bradbury Bartlett Cutler Stedman A Bigelow Brigham B Adams Russell Hobart Richardson J Adams Reed Burnell Goodrich Trafton Dawes Chapin  Robinson Whiting Wallace Coolidge Draper Sprague Powers Sullivan Peters Tinkham Douglass Higgins Flaherty Curley Kennedy O'Neill Burke Donnelly 12th district Dearborn Parker Lee S Thatcher Skinner Larned Bidwell Bacon Dewey Hulbert Strong Kendall L Bigelow Baylies Hodges J Adams Robinson Rockwell Crosby Morse Lovering Powers Weeks Curley Gallivan McCormack Keith Studds 13th district Wadsworth Seaver Ruggles Dowse Eustis Reed Randall Simpkins Greene Weeks Mitchell Carter Luce Wigglesworth Burke 14th district G Thatcher Cutts King Holmes Lovering Foss Harris Gilmore Olney Frothingham Wigglesworth Martin 15th district Wadsworth Ilsley Whitman Widgery Bradbury Whitman Greene Leach Martin Gifford 16th district S Thatcher Cook Tallman Davis Brown Orr Hill T Thacher Walsh Gifford 17th district Bruce Chandler Gannett F Carr Wood J Carr Wilson Kinsley 18th district Wilson Rice Parker 19th district Parker Conner Gage Cushman 20th district Hubbard  Parris Lincoln At-large Cobb

v t e United States Whig Party Presidential Nominees 1836 William Henry Harrison / Daniel Webster / Hugh Lawson White / Willie Person Mangum 1840 William Henry Harrison 1844 Henry Clay 1848 Zachary Taylor 1852 Winfield Scott 1856 Millard Fillmore 1860 John Bell

v t e Cabinet of President William Henry Harrison (1841) Vice President John Tyler (1841) Secretary of State Daniel Webster (1841) Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Ewing (1841) Secretary of War John Bell (1841) Attorney General John J. Crittenden (1841) Postmaster General Francis Granger (1841) Secretary of the Navy George E. Badger (1841)

v t e Cabinet of President John Tyler (1841–1845) Vice President None (1841–1845) Secretary of State Daniel Webster (1841–1843) Abel P. Upshur (1843–1844) John C. Calhoun (1844–1845) Secretary of the Treasury Thomas Ewing (1841) Walter Forward (1841–1843) John C. Spencer (1843–1844) George M. Bibb (1844–1845) Secretary of War John Bell (1841) John C. Spencer (1841–1843) James M. Porter (1843–1844) William Wilkins (1844–1845) Attorney General John J. Crittenden (1841) Hugh S. Legaré (1841–1843) John Nelson (1843–1845) Postmaster General Francis Granger (1841) Charles A. Wickliffe (1841–1845) Secretary of the Navy George E. Badger (1841) Abel P. Upshur (1841–1843) David Henshaw (1843–1844) Thomas W. Gilmer (1844) John Y. Mason (1844–1845)

v t e Cabinet of President Millard Fillmore (1850–1853) Vice President None (1850–1853) Secretary of State John Middleton Clayton (1850) Daniel Webster (1850–1852) Edward Everett (1852–1853) Secretary of the Treasury William M. Meredith (1850) Thomas Corwin (1850–1853) Secretary of War George W. Crawford (1850) Charles M. Conrad (1850–1853) Attorney General Reverdy Johnson (1850) John J. Crittenden (1850–1853) Postmaster General Jacob Collamer (1850) Nathan K. Hall (1850–1852) Samuel D. Hubbard (1852–1853) Secretary of the Navy William B. Preston (1850) William A. Graham (1850–1852) John Pendleton Kennedy (1852–1853) Secretary of the Interior Thomas Ewing (1850) Thomas M. T. McKennan (1850) Alexander H. H. Stuart (1850–1853)

Authority control WorldCat VIAF: 4944460 LCCN: n80034929 ISNI: 0000 0000 8352 1696 GND: 118806459 SELIBR: 289802 SUDOC: 060982020 BNF: cb120270205

Persondata
Name	Webster, Daniel
Alternative names
Short description	American statesman during the nation's antebellum era
Date of birth	1782-01-18
Place of birth	Salisbury, New Hampshire
Date of death	1852-10-25
Place of death	Marshfield, Massachusetts