as the greatest of American commemorative orators, these years from 1827 to 1852 are not so important. In short compass, the more important facts of Webster's career during these years as United States Senator and Secretary of State may be related, and the further contributions which he made to oratorical literature may be explained, sufficiently for the purpose in mind. The subject divides itself into four headings: 1. Entrance to Senate and first period there; 2. Secretary of State; 3. Return to Senate; 4. Secretary of State the second time.

During his first period in the Senate (1827-1841), Webster won his greatest fame by his celebrated reply to Hayne. On Tuesday and Wednesday, January 26 and 27, 1830, in answer to a speech by Mr. Robert Young Hayne, of South Carolina, Webster delivered a speech which has probably been more often drawn upon for quotations and selected declamations than any other American speech. Senator Samuel A. Foote, of Connecticut, toward the end of the preceding month, had introduced the following seemingly harmless resolution: "Resolved, That the Committee on Public Lands be instructed to inquire and report the quantity of public lands remaining unsold within each State and Territory, and whether it be expedient to limit for a certain period the sales of the public lands to such lands only as have heretofore been offered for sale, and are now subject to entry at the minimum price. And, also, whether the office of surveyor-general, and some of the land offices may not be abolished without detriment to the public interest." Senator Hayne took occasion to point out the hostility of the East to the growing West, shown in Foote's resolution. Senator Webster replied, in a strong speech, denying that any hostility had been shown to the West. Hayne returned to the charge, going afield from the main point at issue, and enlarging upon the doctrine that the Federal government is not the exclusive judge of how far the powers of the nation extend over the states. Hayne's is by no means an

insignificant speech, for it reads well to-day if one considers merely its form and tone. Yet Webster overwhelmed Hayne oratorically in a second answer, spoken partly on a Tuesday and finished the next day. This speech is the noblest of expositions of what the Constitution and the Union meant to the people of the North and the West in 1830; it is Webster's greatest political address.

Other important speeches of Webster in the Senate at this period were those on the constitutionality of the United States bank, on the Subtreasury plan, and on the South Carolina Ordinance of nullification.

During this long period in the Senate, Webster was in the forefront of every political controversy. However, he found time early in his first term to take part in the White murder trial, in 1831, making a marvelously vivid argument for the prosecution. Toward the end of his first period in the Senate, Webster felt the need of rest, and journeyed to England and France, where he spent some months in 1839. Two years later he resigned from the Senate to enter the cabinet.

Upon the election of William H. Harrison as President, Webster accepted the office of Secretary of State in 1841, and held this place in the cabinet through the short, one-month term of Harrison and through part of the term of Tyler, until May, 1843, when for a year he retired to private life and his law practice. The principal diplomatic difficulty that Webster had to meet when he was Secretary of State in these administrations was the question of the northeastern boundary. There were so many complicating features in the international politics of the era that it looked as if there would certainly be war; but England finally sent to the United States as boundary commissioner a man who had coolness of judgment and understanding of the question, Lord Ashburton. With him Webster arranged a satisfactory settlement of the trouble. In spite of the great difficulty in getting the confirmation of the Senate in this country

and of Parliament in England, Webster and Lord Ashburton finally carried the treaty through, and the boundary was thus settled without war. This is Webster's most important achieve ment as head of the cabinet during Tyler's term, though he acquitted himself in statesmanlike fashion in handling several minor problems, such as the making of a treaty with Portugal and the vindication of the course of the United States in the matter of the gaining of independence by Texas. In 1844 Webster was re-elected Senator from Massachusetts.

While serving in the Senate again Webster was from time to time talked about as a presidential possibility. He was too big a man to be President in those days. He was not enough of a politician and he was too much of a statesman. There were always hindrances in his way at nominating conventions, yet he longed to be President. Perhaps it was because of this longing that he gradually shifted ground with regard to what was now a burning question, slavery. At any rate, though he opposed with tremendous force in his earlier speeches, from 1819 to about 1840, the principle of slavery and the specific extension of it under the Constitution, he came in 1850 to the lukewarm attitude which produced the memorable utterance known as the Seventh of March Speech. As a party man, he had hesitated to put himself at the head of a new party when the Whigs with whom he was allied wavered on the question of slavery; yet he was loath to join the Free-Soilers, who were more decided in their opposition. Thus, sticking to his party, he was led to what men of the North consider his great blunder as a statesman. In his Seventh of March Speech he endeavored to win the North to believe that a compromise with the South on the question of slavery was for the best interests of the nation. He saw that the forces of the two sections would clash before long unless matters should be compromised. He tried to stem the feeling of the North against the extension of slavery and against the return of fugitive slaves. Since

he aimed at what is now seen to have been the impossible, he failed in this speech to accomplish his object.

Again Webster resigned from the Senate to become Secretary of State, this time under President Fillmore. He entered the cabinet in July, 1850, at the age of sixty-eight. The best of his life was behind him. Still, his great intellectual powers were sufficient to enable him to perform the necessary cabinet duties with acumen and skill. Several delicate problems requiring statesmanship of a high order had to be handled at this period, such as the unpleasantness with Austria on account of the sympathy in the United States for the Hungarian revolutionist, Kossuth, the correspondence with the English minister regarding the neutrality of the proposed Nicaraguan canal, the invasion of Cuba in which volunteers from the United States took part, bringing about difficulties with Spain almost resulting in war, and the disputes with England regarding the fisheries. These problems occupied Webster's thoughts and drew from him a number of able dispatches in the last summer of his life. As a presidential convention approached, his friends again put him forward for the nomination, but in the convention he received few votes, so that one more disappointment embittered his last year. In May, 1852, he was thrown from his carriage. while driving near his farm at Marshfield, Massachusetts. Together with the disease which had already weakened his constitution, the injury sustained in the fall from his carriage made recovery improbable. He lingered on, however, till October 24, 1852, when he died at three o'clock in the morning at his Marshfield home by the sea. His last words of consciousness were, "I still live."

The greatest

This sentence may be considered prophetic. of American orators, the leader of the Senate for a quarter of a century, the lawyer who held the foremost place at the bar for over thirty years, and the statesman who during that time more than any other statesman, in season and out of season,

vigorously and skillfully upheld the principle of national unity, dignity, and power, Daniel Webster must remain for all years a towering personality in American history. One cannot love him, because he was too proud. One cannot revere him, because he lacked moral strength. Yet one cannot help admiring him for his wonderful powers of mind and his transcendent genius as an orator. No one can read the polished, perfected utterances of Daniel Webster on the destiny of our nation without feeling the bright glow of patriotism. His words still live.

QUESTIONS

1. What is there that is specially significant in Webster's school and college life?

2. How did he first make his mark in the world?

3. What is his most celebrated law case?

4. What was his career as a statesman?

5. What were his most striking characteristics as a man? 6. What are some of his great commemorative speeches?

THE OCCASION, THE ORATION, AND THE BATTLE

As a means of giving one the best appreciation of what Daniel Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration is, it is worth while to reflect upon matters connected with the delivery of the speech, upon the most important characteristics of the speaker and his oration, and upon the circumstances of the battle commemorated by the monument.

An Address delivered at the Laying of the Corner Stone of the Bunker Hill Monument is the description of the famous oration as it appears on the title-page of the first edition, a thin octavo volume, published in Boston in 1825. This description shows the circumstance which produced the address. So early as December, 1794, there had been erected on the hill by Masonic brethren of General Joseph Warren, who was killed in the conflict, a monument in his honor. Then, some twenty years later, a number of patriotic gentlemen of Boston