Daniel Webster

Early Life

Webster was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire. He was the son of Ebenezer and Abigail Webster (née Eastman) and raised on his parents' farm (a small parcel of land granted to Ebenezer in recognition of his service in the French and Indian War). His parents were poor, but dedicated to his education and thus not only hired private tutors to teach him but also sent him to the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.

His time at the Phillips Exeter Academy was short (he left after 9 months) and traumatic. As a child Daniel had a deep fear of public speaking and was unable to conquer his fear sufficiently to deliver the required public "declamations" that were a feature of the education system at the time. Indeed, despite his later success as an orator, he is recorded as having been so petrified at school that he simply refused to stand up and returned to his room in shame and in tears. The reason for his short stay at the academy is unknown but seems likely to be simply the inability of his parents to meet the fees.

From Phillips he went to Dartmouth College graduating in 1801. Here he laid to rest his terror of public speaking using his phenomenal memory and skill at speech writing. He became a member of the literary society known as the "United Fraternity" where he practiced the art of public speaking. So successful was he at overcoming his fears that shortly after his graduation the town of Hanover invited him to deliver the Independence Day oration. On graduating from Dartmouth he took a legal apprenticeship (firstly under Thomas W. Thompson and then Christopher Gore) and then in 1805 he opened his first legal practice in Boscawen, New Hampshire. In 1807 his father took over the Boscawen firm when Webster opened a new practice in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

In 1808 he married his first wife, Grace Fletcher, who died in 1828. With her he had one son named Charles.

Law

From this point on his reputation as a lawyer grew quickly and he also became a Federalist party leader. In 1812 he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives because of his opposition to the War of 1812. He served two terms in the House before leaving Congress in 1816 and moving to Boston.

In 1816, Webster was asked to help in a legal matter representing Dartmouth College. In the wake of the Jeffersonian Republicans' success in the New Hampshire elections (they gained the governorship and a majority in the legislature) the state decided to declare Dartmouth a public institution. They altered the constitution and size of the College's trustee body and then added a further board of overseers, which they put into the hands of the Senator. In essence they seized control of a private body without consultation or any offer of compensation. Webster assisted his friend Jeremiah Smith in fighting the action all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States where he gained victory, five justices to one.

In 1822, Webster was returned to Congress from Boston, and in 1827 he was elected to the Senate from the state of Massachusetts.

After the death of Grace Webster in 1828 he met and then married Caroline LeRoy.

Throughout his life Webster championed American nationalism and after the demise of the Federalist party he joined the National Republican party. Here he chose to ally himself with Henry Clay, endorsing federal aid for projects to build roads in the West. In 1828, in response to the changing economic landscape in Massachusetts (there was a shift towards the manufacturing sector), he backed the high-tariff bill. This angered Southern leaders and brought Webster into dispute with South Carolina's John C. Calhoun who argued that his state had the right to overturn this particular piece of legislation. Webster, however, was successful in defending his stance in a Senate debate of 1830.

In 1833 he joined forces with President Andrew Jackson to defeat South Carolina's continued attempts at nullifying the tariff. At the same time Webster and his fellow Whigs battled Jackson over other matters, most notably what they saw as Jackson's attack on the National Bank. In 1836 Webster was one of three 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 several unsuccessful attempts at gaining the presidency.

President William Henry Harrison appointed Webster to the prestigious post of United States Secretary of State in 1841, a post he retained under John Tyler after the untimely death of Harrison only a month after his inauguration. In September 1841 there was an internal division amongst the Whigs over the question of the National Bank. This caused all the Whigs barring Webster to resign from Tyler's cabinet.

In 1842 he was the architect of the Webster-Ashburton Treaty which established the definitive Eastern border between the United States and Canada and sealed the final peace between the United States and Great Britain. But despite this great success he succumbed to Whig pressure in May 1842 and finally left the cabinet.

In 1845 he was re-elected to the Senate where he opposed both the annexation of Texas and the resulting war with Mexico. However the country was becoming more polarized on the issue of the expansion of slavery and, despite opposing such expansion, Webster found himself faced with the prospect of the breakup of the Union. On March 7, 1850, in one of his most memorable speeches before the Senate, he supported the Compromise of 1850, thereby repulsing Southern threats of secession while urging Northern support for a stronger law for the recovery of fugitive slaves. In July 1850, Webster was once again named Secretary of State under President Millard Fillmore and he supervised the strict enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Act. This made him massively unpopular with the anti-slavery lobby but his action in preventing southern secession is considered to have saved the Union.

Daniel Webster died on October 24, 1852 at his home in Marshfield as a result of a brain hemorrhage after he fell from his horse and took a crushing blow to the head.

Quotes by Daniel Webster

• "Justice is the great interest of man on Earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together."

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