him as an example to our own men, and to the men of the whole world. Indeed, it is no figure of speech, when we say that his fame was "world-wide." But, Senators, I have risen to pronounce no eulogy on him. I am up for no such vain purpose. I come with nc ceremony. I come to the portals of his grave, stricken with sadness-before the assembled Senate-in the presence of friends and Senators-(for whether they be of this side of the Chamber or the other side of the Chamber, I hope I am entitled to call every Senator my friend)—to mingle my grief with the grief of those around me. But I cherish no hope of adding one gravel-stone to the colossal column he has erected for himself. I would only place a garland of friendship on the bier of one of the greatest and best men I ever knew. Senators, you have known Mr. Webster in his public character as a statesman of almost intuitive perceptions as a lawyer of unsurpassed learning and ability-as a ripe and general scholar. But it was my happiness to know him, also, as a man in the seclusion of private life; and in the performance of sacred domestic duties, and of those of reciprocal friendship, I say, in this presence, and as far as my voice may reach, that he was remarkable for all those attributes which constitute a generous, magnanimous, courageous, hospitable, and high-minded man. as far as my researches into the history of the world have gone, they have failed to discover his superior. Not even on the records of ancient Greece, or Rome, or of any other nation, are to be found the traces of a man of superior endowments to our own Webster. Sir, Mr. President, in private life he was a man of pure and noble sentiments, and eminently kind, social, and agreeable. He was generous to a fault. Sir, one act of his, one speech of his, made in this Chamber, placed him before all men of antiquity. He offered himself—yes, you all remember, in that seat there, he rose and offered himself a living sacrifice for his country. And Lord Bacon has said, that he who offers himself as a sacrifice for his country, is a sight for angels to look upon. Mr. President, my feelings on this occasion will not sur prise Senators, who remember that these are no new sentiments for me that when he was living, I had the temerity to say that Daniel Webster was the greatest among men, and a true patriot-ay, sir! when the expression of such opinions might have interfered with political aspirations imputed to me. Well, sir, if an empire had then been hanging on my words, I would not have amended or altered one sentiment. Having said thus much for the dead, allow me to express a word of thanks to the honorable Senator from Michigan, (Mr. Cass.) Sir, I have often had occasion to feel sentiments of regard, and, if he will permit me to say it, of affectionate regard, for him, and sometimes to express them; but the emotions created in my heart by his address this morning are not easily expressed. I thank him—in the fulness of my heart I thank him; and may God spare him to our country many years. May he long remain here, in our midst, as he is at this day, in all the strength of manhood, and in all the glory of matured wisdom. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, Wednesday, December 15, 1852. THE Journal having been read, A message was received from the Senate by the hands of Asbury Dickins, Esq., its Secretary, which, upon request of Mr. Davis, of Massachusetts, was read, as follows: Resolved, That the Senate has received with profound sensibility the annunciation from the President of the death of the late Secretary of State, Daniel Webster, who was long a highly distinguished member of this body. Resolved, That the Senate will manifest its respect for the memory of the deceased, and its sympathy with his bereaved family, by wearing the usual badge of mourning for thirty days. Resolved, That these proceedings be communicated to the House of Representatives. VI. MR. DAVIS. Mr. SPEAKER: I rise for the purpose of proposing some action of this House in response to that which, we learn, has taken place in the Senate in reference to the death of Mr. Webster; and I have little to add to the proposition itself beyond a brief expression of reverence and of affectionate recollection. At this seat of Government, where thirty years of Mr. Webster's life were spent -in this Capitol, still populous with the echoes of his voice to this House, of which there is not an individual member but can trace something of his intellectual wealth, or political faith, to the fountain of that mighty intellectit would be useless, and worse, to pass in review the various acts of spoken and written thought by which he impressed himself ineffaceably upon his time. Master of the great original ideas of which our social institutions are but the coarse material expression; master of a style which clothed each glorious thought in a garb of appropriate beauty; possessed of a conquering nature, that, "like the west wind, brought the sunshine with it," and gave us, wherever he was, the sense of security and power, he has run his appointed race, and has left us to feel that our day of life will henceforth be more wintry now that that light has been withdrawn. "But he was ours. And may that word of pride I have no intention of undertaking here to measure his labors or interpret his ideas; but I feel tempted to say that his great field of action-the greatest which any statesman can have was in undertaking to apply general principles to an artificial and complicated system; to reconcile liberty with law; to work out the advance of liberty and civilization through and under the rules of law and government; to solve that greatest problem of human government, how much of the ideal may safely be let into the practical. He sought these objects, and he sought the political power which would enable him to carry out these objects, and he threw into the struggle the great passions of a great nature-the quidquid vult, valde vult, of the elder Brutus. He sought, and not unsuccessfully, to throw around the cold impersonal idea of a constitution the halo of love and reverence which in the Old World gathers round the dynasties of a thousand years; for, in the attachment thus created, he thought he saw the means of safety and permanence for his country. His large experience and broad forecast gave him notice of national dangers which all did not see, as the wires of the electric telegraph convey news of startling import, unknown to the slumbering villages through which they pass. Whether his fears were well or ill founded, the future, the best guardian of his fame, will show; but whether well or ill founded matters nothing now to him. He has passed through the last and sternest trial, which he has himself in anticipation described in words never to be forgotten: "One may live (said he) as a conqueror, a hero, or a magistrate, but he must die as a man. The bed of death brings every human being to his pure individuality; to the intense contemplation of that, the deepest and most solemn of all relations-the relation between the creature and his Creator. Here it is that fame and renown cannot assist us; that all external things must fail to aid us; that friends, affection, and human love and devotedness cannot succor us. This relation, the true foundation of all duty-a relation perceived and felt by conscience and confirmed by revelation our illustrious friend, now deceased, always acknowledged. He reverenced the Scriptures of truth, honored the pure morality which they teach, and clung to the hopes of future life which they impart." Mr. Webster died in accordance with the prevailing sentiment of his life, in the spirit of prayer to God, and of love to man. Well might the nation that watched his dying bed say, in the words which the greatest English poet applies to a legendary hero who also had been the stay of his country in peril: "Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt, VII. MR. APPLETON, of Maine. Mr. SPEAKER: I do not know that I ought to add any thing to what has already been said upon the resolutions before us; yet, since the death of Mr. Webster was a national calamity, it is fit that all classes and all parties in the community should unite to testify their full appreciation of it. The people themselves have admonished us of this, as they have gathered recently with mournful reverence around his tomb; and we should be unworthy of them, if, here in the Capitol, where he won so much of his fame, we did not add our tribute to his memory. It is a GREAT MEMORY, sir, and will go down to posterity, as one of the country's heirlooms, through I know not how many successive generations. We are not here, Mr. Speaker, to build his monument. He builded that for himself before he died; and, had he failed to do so, none among us could supply the deficiency. We are here, rather, to recognise his labors, and to inscribe the marble with his name. That we have not all sympathized with him in his political doctrines, or been ready to sanction every transaction of his public life, need not, and, I am sure, does not, abate any thing from our respect for his services, or our regret for his loss. His character and his works,—what he was and what he did,-constitute a legacy which no sound-hearted American can contemplate without emotions |