His Eulogy of Daniel Webster
Rufus Choate (1799 – 1859)
(1853)
Born in 1799,
died in 1859; elected to Congress in 1830; reelected in 1832 and resigned in
1834; United States Senator in 1841, serving while Webster was Secretary of State;
succeeded by Webster in 1845.
WEBSTER 1
possessed the element of an impressive character, inspiring regard, trust, and
admiration, not unmingled with love. It had, I think, intrinsically a charm
such as belongs only to a good, noble, and beautiful nature. In its combination
with so much fame, so much force of will, and so much intellect, it filled and
fascinated the imagination and heart. It was affectionate in childhood and
youth, and it was more than ever so in the few last months of his long life. It
is the universal testimony that he gave to his parents, in largest measure,
honor, love, obedience; that he eagerly appropriated the first means which he
could command to relieve the father from the debts contracted to educate his
brother and himself; that he selected his first place of professional practise
that he might soothe the
coming on of his
old age. 1
Equally
beautiful was his love of all his kindred and of all his friends.
When I hear him accused
of selfishness, and a cold, bad nature, I recall him lying sleepless all night,
not without tears of boyhood, conferring with Ezekiel how the darling desire of
both hearts should be compassed, and he, too, admitted to the precious
privileges of education; courageously pleading the cause of both brothers in
the morning; prevailing by the wise and discerning affection of the mother;
suspending his studies of the law, and registering deeds and teaching school to
earn the means, for both, of availing themselves of the opportunity which the
parental self-sacrifice had placed within their reach; loving him through life,
mourning him when dead, with a love and a sorrow very wonderful, passing the
sorrow of woman; I recall the husband, the father of the living and of the
early departed, the friend, the counselor of many years, and my heart grows too
full and liquid
for the
refutation of words. 2
His
affectionate nature, craving ever friendship, as well as the presence of
kindred blood, diffused itself through all his private life, gave sincerity to
all his hospitalities, kindness to his eye, warmth to the pressure of his hand,
made his greatness and genius unbend themselves to the playfulness of
childhood, flowed out in graceful memories indulged of the past or the dead, of
incidents when life was young and promised to be happy,—gave generous sketches
of his rivals,—the high contention now hidden by the handful of earth,—hours
passed fifty years ago with great authors, recalled for the vernal emotions which
then they made to live and revel in the soul. And from these conversations of
friendship, no man—no man, old or young—went away to remember one word of
profaneness, one allusion of indelicacy, one impure thought, one unbelieving
suggestion, one doubt cast on the reality of virtue, of patriotism, of
enthusiasm, of the progress of man,—one doubt cast on righteousness, or
temperance, or judgment to
come. 3
I
have learned by evidence the most direct and satisfactory, that in the last
months of his life, the whole affectionateness of his nature—his consideration
of others; his gentleness; his desire to make them happy and to see them
happy—seemed to come out in more and more beautiful and habitual expressions
than ever before. The long day’s public tasks were felt to be done; the cares,
the uncertainties, the mental conflicts of high place, were ended; and he came
home to recover himself for the few years which he might still expect would be
his before he should go hence to be here no more. And there, I am assured and
fully believe, no unbecoming regrets pursued him; no discontent, as for
injustice suffered or expectations unfulfilled; no self-reproach for anything
done or anything omitted by himself; no irritation, no peevishness unworthy of
his noble nature; but instead, love and hope for his country, when she became
the subject of conversation, and for all around him, the dearest and most
indifferent, for all breathing things about him, the overflow of the kindest
heart growing in gentleness and benevolence—paternal, patriarchal affections,
seeming to become more natural, warm, and communicative every hour. Softer and
yet brighter grew the tints on the sky of parting day; and the last lingering
rays, more even than the glories of noon, announced how divine was the source
from which they proceeded; how incapable to be quenched; how certain to rise on
a
morning which no
night should follow. 4
Such
a character was made to be loved. It was loved. Those who knew and saw it in
its hour of calm—those who could repose on that soft green—loved him. His plain
neighbors loved him; and one said, when he was laid in his grave, “How lonesome
the world seems!” Educated young men loved him. The ministers of the gospel,
the general intelligence of the country, the masses afar off, loved him. True,
they had not found in his speeches, read by millions, so much adulation of the
people; so much of the music which robs the public reason of itself; so many
phrases of humanity and philanthropy; and some had told them he was lofty and
cold—solitary in his greatness; but every year they came nearer and nearer to
him, and as they came nearer, they loved him better: they heard how tender the
son had been, the husband, the brother, the father, the friend, and neighbor;
that he was plain, simple, natural, generous, hospitable—the heart larger than
the brain; that he loved little children and reverenced God, the Scriptures,
the Sabbath-day, the Constitution, and the law—and their hearts clave unto him.
More truly of him than even of the great naval darling of England might it be
said that “his presence would set the churchbells ringing, and give schoolboys
a holiday,—would bring children from school and old men from the
chimney-corner, to gaze on him ere he died.” The great and unavailing
lamentations first revealed the deep place he had in the hearts of his
countrymen. 5
You
are now to add to this his extraordinary power of influencing the convictions
of others by speech, and you have completed the survey of the means of his
greatness. And here, again, I begin, by admiring an aggregate made up of
excellences and triumphs, ordinarily deemed incompatible. He spoke with
consummate ability to the bench, and yet exactly as, according to every sound
canon of taste and ethics, the bench ought to be addressed. He spoke with
consummate ability to the jury, and yet exactly as, according to every sound
canon, that totally different tribunal ought to be addressed. In the halls of
Congress, before the people assembled for political discussion in masses,
before audiences smaller and more select, assembled for some solemn
commemoration of the past or of the dead,—in each of these, again, his speech,
of the first form of ability, was exactly adapted, also, to the critical
proprieties of the place; each achieved, when delivered, the most instant and
specific success of eloquence—some of them in a splendid and remarkable degree;
and yet, stranger still, when reduced to writing, as they fell from his lips,
they compose a body of reading, in many volumes—solid, clear, rich, and full of
harmony—a classical and permanent political
literature. 6
...
But there
were other fields of oratory on which, under the influence of more uncommon
springs of inspiration, he exemplified, in still other forms, an eloquence in
which I do not know that he has had a superior among men.
Addressing masses
by tens of thousands in the open air, on the urgent political question of the
day, or designated to lead the meditations of an hour devoted to the
remembrance of some national era, or of some incident marking the progress of
the nation, and lifting him up to a view of what is, and what is past, and some
indistinct revelation of the glory that lies in the future, or of some great
historical name, just borne by the nation to his tomb—we have learned that then
and there, at the base of Bunker Hill, before the corner-stone was laid, and
again when from the finished column the centuries looked on him; in Faneuil
Hall, mourning for those with whose spoken or written eloquence of freedom its
arches had so often resounded; on the Rock of Plymouth; before the Capitol, of
which there shall not be one stone left on another before his memory shall have
ceased to live—in such scenes, unfettered by the laws of forensic or
parliamentary debate, multitudes uncounted lifting up their eyes to him; some
great historical scenes of America around; all symbols of her glory and art and
power and fortune there; voices of the past, not unheard; shapes beckoning from
the future, not unseen—sometimes that mighty intellect, borne upward to a
height and kindled to an illumination which we shall see no more, wrought out,
as it were, in an instant a picture of vision, warning, prediction; the
progress of the nation; the contrasts of its eras; the heroic deaths; the
motives to patriotism; the maxims and arts imperial by which the glory has been
gathered and may be heightened—wrought out, in an instant, a picture to
fade only when
all record of our mind shall die. 9
In
looking over the public remains of his oratory, it is striking to remark how,
even in that most sober and massive understanding and nature, you see gathered
and expressed the characteristic sentiments and the passing time of our
America. It is the strong old oak which ascends before you; yet our soil, our
heaven, are attested in it as perfectly as if it were a flower that could grow
in no other climate and in no other hour of the year or day.
Let me instance
in one thing only. It is a peculiarity of some schools of eloquence that they
embody and utter, not merely the individual genius and character of the
speaker, but a national consciousness—a national era, a mood, a hope, a dread,
a despair—in which you listen to the spoken history of the time. There is an
eloquence of an expiring nation, such as seems to sadden the glorious speech of
Demosthenes; such as breathes grand and gloomy from the visions of the prophets
of the last days of Israel and Judah; such as gave a spell to the expression of
Grattan and of Kossuth—the sweetest, most mournful, most awful of the words
which man may utter, or which man may
hear—the
eloquence of a perishing nation. 10
There
is another eloquence, in which the national consciousness of a young or renewed
and vast strength, of trust in a dazzling, certain, and limitless future, an
inward glorying in victories yet to be won, sounds out as by voice of clarion,
challenging to contest for the highest prize of earth; such as that in which
the leader of Israel in its first days holds up to the new nation the Land of Promise;
such as that which in the well-imagined speeches scattered by Livy over the
history of the “majestic series of victories” speaks the Roman consciousness of
growing aggrandizement which should subject the world; such as that through
which, at the tribunes of her revolution, in the bulletins of her rising
soldiers, France told to the
world her dream
of glory. 11
And
of this kind somewhat is ours—cheerful, hopeful, trusting, as befits youth and
spring; the eloquence of a State beginning to ascend to the first class of
power, eminence, and consideration, and conscious of itself. It is to no
purpose that they tell you it is in bad taste; that it partakes of arrogance
and vanity; that a true national good breeding would not know, or seem to know,
whether the nation is old or young; whether the tides of being are in their
flow or ebb; whether these coursers of the sun are sinking slowly to rest,
wearied with a journey of a thousand years, or just bounding from the Orient
unbreathed. Higher laws than those of taste determine the consciousness of
nations. Higher laws than those of taste determine the general forms of the
expression of that consciousness. Let the downward age of America find its
orators and poets and artists to erect its spirit, or grace and soothe its
dying; be it ours to go up with Webster to the Rock,
the Monument, the
Capitol, and bid “the distant generations hail!” 12
Until
the seventh day of March, 1850, I think it would have been accorded to him by an
almost universal acclaim, as general and as expressive of profound and
intelligent conviction and of enthusiasm, love, and trust, as ever saluted
conspicuous statesmanship, tried by many crises of affairs in a
great nation,
agitated ever by parties, and wholly free. 13
Note 1. From a commemorative address before the
faculty, students, and alumni of
from "The World's Great Orations" ed. by William Jennings Bryan,
1906, published in full by bartelsby.com