Wea-Web: Weaver through Webster

See below for annotated biographies of American abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. Sources include: Scribner’s Dictionary of American Biography and Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography.


WEAVER, James Baird (June 12, 1833- February 6, 1912), soldier, congressman, Greenback and Populist candidate for the presidency.  He had been a Democrat, but, according to his own account, was converted to Free-Soil principles by reading Uncle Tom's Cabin and the New York Tribune. From 1857 until the outbreak of the Civil War he was active in local Republican circles, and he attended the convention which nominated Lincoln for the presidency in 1860. 

(E. A. Allen, The Life and Public Services of James Baird Weaver (1892); H. C. Evans, The Pioneers and Politics of Davis County, Iowa (1929); S. D. Dillaye, "Life of General J. B. Weaver" in Our Presidential Candidates and Political Compendium (1880).

Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 568-570:

WEAVER, JAMES BAIRD (June 12, 1833- February 6, 1912), soldier, congressman, Greenback and Populist candidate for the presidency, was born at Dayton, Ohio, fifth of the thirteen children of Abram and Susan (Imlay) Weaver. His father, a skilled mechanic and millwright, moved in 1835 to a forest-enclosed farm near Cassopolis, Michigan, and eight years later to a quarter section of virgin prairie in what soon became Davis County, Iowa. Here on a typical frontier young Weaver grew to manhood. He attended the country schools, and when his father's election to a minor county office took the family to Bloomfield, the county-seat, he had the advantage of the somewhat better schools of that small town. For several years (1847-51) he carried the mail through roadless country and across bridgeless streams, from Bloomfield to Fairfield, Iowa. In 1853 he accompanied a relative overland to California, and within a few months was cured completely of the gold fever, from which he had suffered since 1848. On his return to Iowa he worked in a store at Bonaparte, and had he consented might have become a partner in the business. By this time, however, he had discovered his aptitude for public speaking, particularly on controversial subjects, and had resolved to become a lawyer. In 1855, after borrowing one hundred dollars at thirty-three and one-third per cent. interest, he entered the Cincinnati Law School. A year later he was graduated and returned to Bloomfield to practise law.

Almost immediately he became absorbed in politics. He had been a Democrat, but, according to his own account, was converted to Free-Soil principles by reading Uncle Tom's Cabin and the New York Tribune. From 1857 until the outbreak of the Civil War he was active in local Republican circles, and he attended the convention which nominated Lincoln for the presidency, although not as a delegate. When Lincoln called for troops in 1861, Weaver volunteered and was made first lieutenant of the 2nd Iowa Infantry. He was in the thick of the fighting at Fort Donelson, at Shiloh, and at Corinth. On July 25, 1862, probably because his colonel had great confidence in him he was advanced over all the captains of his regiment to the rank of major, and when, during the battle of Corinth, his colonel and lieutenant-colonel were both mortally wounded, he took command. His conduct during this emergency was so gallant that afterwards, with the full approval of the officers who had so recently outranked him, he was commissioned colonel. During the winter of 1863-64, he was stationed at Pulaski, Tennessee, where, under orders of a superior officer, he obtained by an assessment upon the inhabitants the means needed to care for some Confederate refugees. Later his political opponents made much more of this incident than the facts warranted. When his term of enlistment expired, in May 1864, he returned to his home in Iowa, and on March 13, 1865, he was brevetted brigadier-general.

Weaver's services to his country and his party launched him upon what would normally have been a successful political career. He failed in 1865 to obtain a nomination for the post of lieutenant- governor, but in 1866 he was elected district attorney of the second Iowa judicial district, and in 1867 he received an appointment as federal assessor of internal revenue for the first district of Iowa, a post which he held until 1873. From this time forward, however, he lost ground with the Republican leaders in his state. He was a devout Methodist, utterly incorruptible, and an ardent prohibitionist; he denounced the extortions of the politically important railways and other predatory corporations; and he objected strenuously to the stand his party was taking on the currency question. Nevertheless, such was his popularity that only the sharpest political trickery prevented him from obtaining the Republican nomination for Congress in 1874, and for governor in 1875. Undoubtedly these defeats, which he believed wholly unmerited, served to undermine his party loyalty, and to drive him towards the "independents," or "Greenbackers," for whose principles he was developing a great affinity. His views on the money question would not at a later date have been regarded as extreme. He was not an advocate of unlimited inflation, nor of debt repudiation, but he held to the quantity theory of money, and opposed what he deemed the systematic efforts of the creditor class to appreciate the purchasing power of the dollar. As a Greenbacker he won a seat in Congress in 1878, ran for president in 1880, was defeated for Congress in 1882, but won again in 1884 and 1886.

When the Farmers' Alliance succeeded the Greenbackers as the chief exponent of soft-money views, Weaver hastened to identify himself with that organization, and he took a leading part in transforming it into the People's, or Populist, party. With but little opposition he was accorded the Populist nomination for the presidency in 1892. Throughout the campaign the magnetism of his personality, enhanced rather than diminished by his whitened hair and his generally patriarchal appearance, was as effective as on the battlefield of Corinth. His commanding presence coupled with the force and fire of his oratory gave him a bearing where a less able speaker would have been laughed off the stage. Only in the South, where falsified accounts of his Pulaski record were deliberately circulated, was he subjected to the discourtesies so commonly accorded to third-party orators. His defeat was inevitable, but he received a popular vote of over a million, and twenty-two votes in the electoral college. His book, A Call to Action (1892), published during the campaign, summarized his own political principles and furnished much of the ammunition used by his supporters during the fray.

Weaver's victories in the eighties had been won by the assistance of the Democrats, and after 1892 he was one of the leading advocates of a fusion of all soft-money forces; When in 1896 Bryan captured the Democratic nomination, Weaver strongly favored his nomination by the Populists also, and helped to bring it about. Fusion, however, rang the death knell of Populism, and within a few years Weaver found himself, together with most of the Populist leaders, a Democrat, and without a future in politics. With his political career at an end, his neighbors in the town of Colfax, Iowa, where he spent the later years of his life, showed their good will by choosing him to be their mayor. On July 13, 1858, he married Clara Vinson, a school-teacher who had come to Iowa from St. Mary's, Ohio; they were the parents of five girls and two boys. The year of his death, 1912, there was published Past and Present of Jasper County, Iowa, in two volumes, bearing his name as editor-in-chief.

[James B. Weaver, Jr., of Des Moines, Iowa, has in his possession "Memoranda with Respect to the Life of James Baird Weaver" (unpublished), prepared by Weaver himself. Substantial extracts from this document, which gives information only down to 1859, are printed in F. E. Haynes, James Baird Weaver (1919), a satisfactory account of Weaver's political career, gleaned largely from the newspapers, and from a scrapbook which Weaver kept. See also E. A. Allen, The Life and Public Services of James Baird Weaver (1892); H. C. Evans, The Pioneers and Politics of Davis County, Iowa (1929); S. D. Dillaye, "Life of General J. B. Weaver" in Our Presidential Candidates and Political Compendium (1880); F. E. Haynes, Third Party Movements Since the Civil War (1916); J. D. Hicks, The Populist Revolt (1931); Biographical Directory American Congress (1928); F. B. Heitman, Historical Register and Directory U. S. Army (1903); Who's Who in America, 1910-11; Register and Leader (Des Moines), February 7, 8, 9, 1912.]

J. D. H-s.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, p. 401:

WEAVER, James B., candidate for the presidency, born in Dayton, Ohio, 12 June, 1833. He was graduated at the law-school of Ohio university, Cincinnati, in 1854. In April, 1861, he enlisted as a private in the 2d Iowa infantry, was elected a lieutenant, rose to be major on 3 October, 1861, and after the senior field-officers had fallen at Corinth was commissioned colonel, 12 October, 1862. He was brevetted brigadier-general on 13 March, 1865, for gallantry in action. After the war he resumed legal practice, was elected district attorney of the 2d judicial district of Iowa in 1866, and was appointed assessor of internal revenue for the 5th district of the state in 1867, serving six years. He became editor of the “Iowa Tribune,” published at Des Moines, and was elected to congress, taking his seat on 18 March, 1879. In June, 1880, he was nominated for the presidency by the convention of the National Greenback-Labor party, and in the November election he received 307,740 votes. He was returned to congress after an interval of two terms by the vote of the Greenback-Labor and Democratic parties, taking his seat on 7 December, 1885, and in 1886 was re-elected.  Appletons’ Cyclopædia of American Biography, 1888.


WEAVER, Philip (b. 1791), cotton manufacturer. He was unhappy in South Carolina, chiefly because he felt that he and his family, he had married Miriam Keene, by whom he had four daughters-were "looked down upon with contempt" because they were "opposed to the abominable practice of slavery."

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, p. 570:

WEAVER, PHILIP (b. 1791), cotton manufacturer, was a son of John and Ruth (Wilbur) Weaver of North Scituate, Rhode Island, and a descendant of Clement Weaver who was in Weymouth, Massachusetts, by 1643. As early as 1812 Philip went from his home in Coventry, Rhode Island, to work for the Dudley Cotton Manufacturing Company, Dudley, Massachusetts; in 1815 he was associated with Weaver, Hutchings & Company, for whom he did work on patterns and rollers. Early in 1816 he moved to Spartanburg District, South Carolina, accompanied by his  brothers, John, Wilbur, and Lindsay, as well as William Sheldon, John Clark; Thomas Slack, William Bates, and Thomas Hutchings. He was unhappy in South Carolina, chiefly because he felt that he and his family-,he had married Miriam Keene, by whom he had four daughters-were "looked down upon with contempt" because they were "opposed to the abominable practice of slavery" (Wallace, post, II, 411); nevertheless, he remained there for a number of years. Between December 1816 and 1820 he and his associates experienced serious difficulties because of shortage of cash; the Spartanburg Judgment Roll lists several judgments against them for both large and small sums. In 1819 Weaver was arrested for non-payment of one of these claims, but one Thomas Craven went his bail. The Weaver mill was on land owned by Reverend Benjamin Wofford who was at that early date accumulating the fortune with which he later founded Wofford College. In December 1818 he sold to Nathaniel Gist the tract of sixty acres on the Tiger River containing the mill, but Philip and John Weaver continued to operate the mill after the sale. Philip Weaver owned no land in Spartanburg district until August 14, 1819, when John Withers of Columbia sold Weaver & Company 300 acres on the east side of the Tiger.

Whether or not the weaver mill was the first cotton mill in Spartanburg District has been a matter of controversy. Kohn (post) inclines toward the view that the Weavers were first, while Landrum (post) is inclined to accept the claim made for George and Leonard Hill. Wallace (post) thinks it reasonably clear that the Weavers a little antedated the Hills as manufacturers in Spartanburg. Certainly both the Weaver and Hill mills provided an energetic element in the cotton manufacturing industry in Spartanburg and Greenville counties which undoubtedly laid the foundation for the extensive textile development before 1860.

Philip Weaver left Spartanburg District before 1826 and subsequently settled in Attica, Indiana, where shortly before the Civil War he was killed by a runaway horse. His former associates continued in the manufacturing business: John Weaver built a mill nineteen miles from Greenville, on Thompson's Beaver Dam, and operated it until his death several 'years after the Civil War; Hutchings built and operated several mills in succession with apparent profit, while in the thirties William Bates established the Batesville Cotton Mill.

[L. E. Weaver., History and Genealogy of a Branch of the Weaver Family (1928); Yates Snowden, History of South Carolina (1920), II, u67; D. D. Wallace, The History of South Carolina (1934), II, 411, III, 56; August Kohn, The Cotton Mills of South Carolina (1907); J. B. 0. Landrum, History of Spartanburg County (1900), pp. 157-65; Philip Weaver's account book, Wofford College Library; South Carolina Judgment Rolls, 532, 593, 595; Spartanburg Mesne Conveyance Office, Q 320, R 9, 10, 12, 79; Greenville Mesne Conveyance Office, T 342.]

R. G. S.


WEBB, James Watson (February 8, 1802- June 7, 1884), journalist and diplomat,  He became a chief supporter of the Whig party. He was an anti-abolitionist but a Free-Soiler, and during the 1850's urged the preservation of the Union even at the cost of war.

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 574-575:

WEBB, JAMES WATSON (February 8, 1802- June 7, 1884), journalist and diplomat, was born at Claverack, New York Through his mother, Catharine Hoge boom, he came of old New York Dutch stock; and through his father, General Samuel Blachley Webb (1753 -1807), an aide of Washington, of old Connecticut stock, his first American ancestor being Richard Webb who was admitted freeman in Boston in 1632 and went to Hartford in 1635. Early orphaned, he was educated at Cooperstown, New York, under the guardianship of a brother-in-law, but at seventeen ran away to join the army. Appearing in Washington (1819) armed with a letter of identification from Governor DeWitt Clinton of New York, he persuaded Secretary of War John C. Calhoun to give him a second lieutenant's commission. He was assigned at first to the artillery at Governor's Island, New York, but was transferred in 1821 to the 3rd Infantry at Chicago. There, in 1822, he had a notable frontier adventure, when he volunteered to carry to Fort Armstrong on the Mississippi news of a meditated Indian attack on Fort Snelling, Minnesota, crossing the forests and prairies of Illinois in the depth of winter while trailed by hostile Indians. As impetuous as he was audacious, Webb fought two duels with fellow-officers, came near fighting many more, and finally (1827) resigned from the army in consequence of one of these embroilments. At this time he was a first lieutenant; his later title of general was conferred at the time of his appointment as minister to Austria (A Letter ... to J. Bramley- Moore, post, p. 5).

On leaving the army young Webb went to New York City and plunged into a journalistic career, eventually to become one of the most influential editors in that age of personal journalist. In 1827 he acquired the Morning Courier, and in 1829 acquired and merged with it the New-York Enquirer, thereafter continuing as editor and proprietor of the Morning Courier and New-York Enquirer until he sold out to the World in 1861 and retired from the field. At first stanchly Jacksonian, he deserted Jackson in 1832 on the United States Bank issue, and became a chief prop of the Whig party. He was an anti-abolitionist but a Free-Soiler, and during the 1850's urged the preservation of the Union even at the cost of war. The Courier and Enquirer was one of the old sixpenny "blanket sheets" destined to be starved out by the smaller, cheaper papers, two of which were founded by one-time assistants of Webb's, James Gordon Bennett, the elder, and Henry Jarvis Raymond [qq.v.]. With its chief rival, the Journal of Commerce, the Courier and Enquirer waged a war of size which eventually produced folios containing over two thousand square inches of type. In the 1830's the rivals sent schooners fifty to a hundred miles to sea in a race for incoming news, and established pony expresses to hasten the news from Washington. With the editors of the penny papers Webb later exchanged plentiful invective, until he was called the "best abused" of them all. He was frequently involved in affairs of honor growing out of his editorial activities, on one occasion (1842) escaping prison under the New York anti-dueling law only by the pardon of the governor.

At the outbreak of the Civil War Webb sold his paper and, somewhat to his own surprise, found himself in the diplomatic service. He had journeyed to Vienna in 1849-50 under appointment (January 7, 1850), as charge d'affaires to Austria, only to be greeted with the news that the Senate had refused to confirm his appointment, perhaps because of a widespread desire to break with Austria in protest against the Hungarian war. He was now (May 31, 1861) made minister to Brazil, and went to his post via France, where he presented the Union cause to Louis Napoleon, his friend and correspondent since their meeting in 1835 while Napoleon was in exile. Later, through correspondence and another fateful interview (November 1865), Webb was instrumental in securing a promise of French withdrawal from Mexico. The record of his eight strenuous years in Brazil is marked by an alert patriotism and a bold energy verging on rashness. He had the satisfaction of seeing the unfriendly British envoy sent home in disgrace. He fought tirelessly against the aid extended to Confederate privateers, protected the interests of Americans during the Paraguayan War, and secured the settlement of several long-standing maritime claims. Retiring from the service in 1869, he traveled in Europe for two years, and then lived quietly at home, mostly in New York, until his death. His publications include a number of pamphlets: To the Officers of the Army (1827) on the occasion of his resignation; Slavery and Its Tendencies (n.d.), written in 1856; A Letter ... to J. Bramley-Moore, Esq., M.P. (n.d.), on the affair with the British envoy; and A National Currency (1875.). He also wrote Reminiscences of General Samuel B. Webb (1882).

Webb was twice married: first (July 1, 1823) to Hel en Lispenard Stewart, daughter of Alexander L. Stewart, who died in 1848; second (November 9, 1849) to Laura Virginia Cram, daughter of Jacob Cram, millionaire brewer. Of the eight children born of the first union, five grew to maturity,  the youngest being Alexander Stewart Webb [q.v.], the well-known Civil War general. There were five sons born of the second marriage. Webb's tall figure, massive head, and piercing eyes gave him a dignified, even imposing presence, which he retained until old age, in spite of a half-century's battle with hereditary gout.

[In addition to, Webb' s pamphlets, see for family data Webb's Reminiscences of General Samuel B. Webb (1882); for the Fort Snelling adventure, dedication to Altowan; or, Incidents of Life and Adventure in the Rocky Mountains (2 volumes, 1846), ed. by Webb; for charges arising out of the Carolina claims, General J. Watson Webb .. . vs. Hamilton Fish (1875), and J. B. Moore, A Digest of international Law (1906), volume VI, pp. 749-50. See also G. H. Andrews, in Sketches of Men of Progress (1870-71), ed. by James Parton; N. A. Cleven, in Revista do Instituto Historico e Geographico Brasileiro ... Congresso Internacional de Historia da America (.1925), pp. 293-394; F. E. Stevens, fames Watson Webb's Tri p across Illinois in 1822 (1924); Frederic Hudson, Journalism in the U.S. (1873); obituary in New York Times, June 8, 1884. Webb's dispatches from Brazil were published in Papers Relating to Foreign Affairs, 1862-69.]

E. M. S.


WEBB, Mary, 1828-1859, African American, orator.  Gave dramatic readings of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin.  Dramatic readings were organized by Samuel Gridley Howe, which helped publicize the anti-slavery cause.

(Gates, Henry Louis, Jr., & Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, eds. African American National Biography. Oxford University Press, 2013, Volume 11, p. 552)


WEBB, Samuel, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, abolitionist, American Anti-Slavery Society, Manager, 1840-41.


WEBSTER, Daniel, 1782-1852, statesman, U.S. Secretary of State, orator, author, strong opponent of slavery.  Vice President of the American Colonization Society, 1833-1841.  President of the Society for the Suppression of the Slave Trade in 1822.

(Baxter, 1984; Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2005; Mabee, Carleton. Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 Through the Civil War. London: Macmillan, 1970, pp. 175, 197, 261, 291, 307; Mitchell, Thomas G. Antislavery Politics in Antebellum and Civil War America. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007; Peterson, 1987; Remini, 1997; Rodriguez, Junius P., Slavery in the United States: A Social, Political, and Historical Encyclopedia, ABC-CLIO, 2007, pp. 331-332, 508-509; Shewmaker, 1990; Smith, 1989; Webster, 1969; Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 406-415; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 585-592; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 22, p. 865; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 22, p. 865; Staudenraus, P. J. The African Colonization Movement, 1816-1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1961, pp. 27, 76, 245; Longacre, James B. & James Herring, National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.  Philadelphia: American Academy of Fine Arts, 1834-1839). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 585-592:

WEBSTER, DANIEL (January 18, 1782-October 24, 1852), statesman, was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire. He was descended from Thomas Webster, who was brought to Ipswich, Massachusetts, c. 1635 as an infant and later removed to the southern New Hampshire frontier. His father, Ebenezer Webster, an unlettered but intrepid colonial, took part in General Jeffrey Amherst's invasion of Canada in 1759 and was allotted some 225 acres of land in the upper Merrimack Valley, where he became a founder and local official in the exposed frontier town of Salisbury. Ebenezer was an early and active revolutionary leader and served with distinction as captain in the militia. He also served capably in the state legislature and participated in the ratification of the federal Constitution as a member of the New Hampshire convention. Later in life Captain Webster, who kept this title even after he had been made a colonel in the state militia, was made a lay judge of the county court of common pleas. Webster's mother, Abigail Eastman, of Welsh stock, was a second wife who, like her predecessor, bore Ebenezer five children; of these Daniel was next to the youngest.

A lad of delicate health, Daniel was spared the heavier tasks which his brothers and sisters shared on the rugged New Hampshire farm. He found opportunity instead for the cultivation of his precocious mind and strongly emotional nature. In the random schools of the neighborhood the boy found that in reading he "generally could perform better" than the teachers in charge but his crude achievements in the irksome task of writing caused his masters to wonder whether after all his fingers were not "destined for the plough-tail" (Writings and Speeches, National ed., XVII, 7). His father, however, not satisfied with his clumsy efforts at certain rural tasks, was determined to save him from a life of arduous toil and shortly announced his intention to give Daniel "the advantage of knowledge" that had been denied to himself. Accordingly, in 1796, Captain Webster enrolled his fourteen-year-old son in the Phillips Exeter Academy. The boy was shy and sensitive about his unfashionable attire and clumsy manners, but he made rapid headway with his studies. Only in declamation was he unable to match his fellows: at the weekly public exhibitions, despite careful preparation, he "could never command sufficient resolution" to leave his seat and present his offerings (Ibid., XVII, 10).

In December 1796 Daniel returned with his father to Salisbury without having completed his course. A brief period of school-teaching ended with an arrangement for him to study under the Reverend Samuel Wood of Boscawen, who had offered to prepare him for Dartmouth College. By August 1797 he had achieved fair success in Latin and Greek and in the meantime had satisfied his omnivorous appetite for reading in 'the village library. With this uncertain equipment he presented himself for admission to Dartmouth at the opening of the regular fall term. Arriving on horseback with baggage and bedding, Webster began a college course that cost him in four years considerably less than two hundred dollars. The swarthy youngster, who was often taken for an Indian, soon acquired the nickname of "Black Dan." He pursued his studies with energy, yet found time for his two youthful enthusiasms, reading and playing. He graduated not far from the top of his class. He dabbled with enthusiasm in poetry and earned part of his board temporarily by contributing to the village newspaper. In contrast with his failure in Exeter days, he was outstanding in one of the college debating societies and developed a reputation as a speaker that led to his being invited by the citizens of Hanover to deliver, at the age of eighteen, the local Fourth of July oration. In this he revealed a florid style and a tendency toward bombast along with the "vigor and glow" that characterized his early oratorical efforts.

Following graduation Webster began the study of law in the office of Thomas W. Thompson of Salisbury. He had no great enthusiasm for the legal profession and seems to have had doubts as to whether he had the "brilliancy, and at the same time penetration and judgment enough, for a great law character" (Ibid., XVII, 92, 95). But he read "Robertson, Vattel, and three volumes of Blackstone," meantime learning the routine of the law office, and began to "feel more at ease" (Ibid., XVII, 100). After some months, however, he gave up these studies to accept a position as teacher in an academy in the small village of Fryeburg, the salary ($350) making it possible for him to aid his father in keeping his elder brother Ezekiel, in college. Offered reappointment at "five or six hundred dollars a year, a house to live in, a piece of land to cultivate" and the probability of a clerkship of the court of common pleas, he was tempted to settle down to spend his days "in a kind of comfortable privacy" (Ibid., XVII, 1 10). But father and friends advised him to pursue the study of law and with a careful definition of his ideals he returned, in September 1802, to Thompson's office. The embryo lawyer pondered the limitations of his calling. Conceding the power of the law to help "invigorate and unfold the powers of the mind," he tried to offset the hard didactic style of the legal treatise with excursions into history and the classics and made random attempts of his own at expression in verse and rhyme.

He long expected that only a miracle would make it possible to transfer to "the capital of New England." Now, upon the urge nt invitation of Ezekiel, who was teaching school there, he went to Boston and had the rare good fortune to be accepted immediately as a clerk by Christopher Gore [q.v.], who had just returned from a diplomatic mission abroad. Influenced by the stimulating scholarship of such an employer and his circle of distinguished associates, Webster's fertile mind developed apace. Upon Gore's advice but to his father's surprise and disappointment he declined the profitable clerkship of the court of common pleas which paternal influence had proudly arranged for him. Admitted to the Boston bar in March 1805, he was recall ed to Boscawen by a sense of filial obligation. His intention had Leen to set up an office in Portsmouth, but his father's illness made it a duty "to drop in the firmament of Boston gayety and pleasure, to the level of a rustic village, of silence and of obscurity" (Ibid., XVII, 200).

In September 1807, some little time after his father's death, he transferred his labors to Portsmouth where he remained for nine "very happy years." To this new home he brought his bride, Grace Fletcher, daughter of a New Hampshire clergyman, whom he married on May 29, 1808 (Fuess, post, I, 101n.). In his practice of law, the young attorney promptly won distinction. Following the superior court in most of the counties of the state, he found it possible to achieve a practice worth nearly $2,000 a year. He enjoyed the professional rivalry of Jeremiah Mason [q.v.], whom he once rated as the greatest lawyer in the country. From their frequent clashes in court he learned the importance of the most careful preparation of his arguments and of the most effective diction. Webster consciously dropped his earlier florid style and sought to achieve the short incisive sentences with which Mason was so masterful. Meantime, the two rivals at the bar became the best of political friends.

During the Portsmouth period Webster was being drawn more and more into politics. Temperamentally a conservative, he had inherited from his father strong Federalist convictions, which were reinforced by other associations, especially by his contacts with the "bigwigs" of Boston. Satisfied that wealth and intelligence should play a dominant role in public life, he early reached the conclusion that the Federalist party combined "more than two thirds of the talent, the character, and the property of the nation" (Writings and Speeches, XVII, n5). He grew to maturity amid the fear of French revolutionary ideals of democracy and came to picture them as threatening civil war "when American blood shall be made to flow in rivers, by American swords!" (Ibid., XVII, 79). It was this fear that produced his early devotion to "the bonds of our Federal Union." The Jeffersonian victory of 1800 seemed an "earthquake of popular commotion" under a Constitution which he was free to admit left "a wide field for the exertions of democratic intrigue" (Ibid., XVII, 111-12). He therefore labored in his humble way-in Fourth of July orations and in occasional political pamphleteering-to contribute to the revival of Federalism, to arouse those who were disposed to "sit still and sigh at the depravity of the times," while the "contagion of democracy" threatened to "pervade every place and corrupt every generous and manly sentiment" (Ibid., XVII, 158, 175).

He soon become a champion of the shipping interests of New England and of their protection against the retaliatory measures of Great Britain and France in their war for European supremacy. When Jefferson instituted a policy of economic coercion that struck a ruinous blow at the commercial prosperity of New England, Webster contributed a pamphlet, Considerations on the Embargo Laws (1808), which effectively voiced the Federalist opposition. By the time that the controversy over neutral rights had led to the outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain, Webster had achieved a recognized place among the Federalists of Portsmouth. In a Fourth of July oration in 1812 he vigorously condemned the administration for having led the nation into an unjustifiable war (Ibid., XV, 583-98). But, unlike the Federalist die-hards who had been for years at least toying with the idea of separating New England from the Union, Webster renounced the idea of resistance or insurrection and took his stand for full freedom of criticism and "the peaceable remedy of election" (Ibid., XV, 594). A month later in his famous "Rockingham Memorial,'' presented at a Federalist mass meeting in Rockingham County, New Hampshire, he reiterated his anti-war views even more forcefully (Ibid., XV, 599--010).

The enthusiastic reception of this memorial, both by the convention which proceeded to nominate him for Congress and by Federalists generally, launched Webster, with his election in November, upon a national political career. Made a member of the committee on foreign relations, he presented, on June 10, 1813, a series of resolutions calling upon the government to explain the events immediately preceding the outbreak of hostilities and had the satisfaction of making a powerful impression and of seeing his resolutions adopted eleven days later (Annals of Congress, 13 Congress, 1 Session, cols. 149-51, 302-1 I). Aiming to embarrass the administration as much as possible, he loosed his eloquence against bounties to encourage enlistments and in favor of the repeal of the Embargo Act; in ringing words he proclaimed  the constitutional right of the opposition to voice its protests and to utilize full freedom of inquiry. He himself refused to vote taxes in support of the war and denounced the government's draft bill, not only as an "infamous expedient" but as clearly "unconstitutional and illegal" (Writings and Speeches, XIV, 55-69). Webster even suggested the expedient of state nullification of a federal law under "the solemn duty of the State Governments to protect their own authority over their own militia, and to interpose between their citizens and arbitrary power" (Ibid., XIV, 68). Since the conscription bill failed, there was no contemporary test of this doctrine. Webster was careful, however, to repudiate any thought of disunion. During the sessions of the Hartford Convention he was busy at Washington and had in the meantime advised the governor of New Hampshire against appointing delegates to a body that might be unduly influenced by the separatist forces (Curtis, post, I, 136).

Reelected in 1814, Webster became influential in the attempts to make peacetime adjustments to the economic lessons taught in the recent war. Legislation to reestablish the United States Bank was modified by Calhoun to meet Webster's objections to the lack of adequate safeguards for financial stability and was passed by Congress only to receive a presidential veto. He later voted against the bank bill which did not contain such safeguards but which was signed by the President in April 1816. In the discussions of fiscal policy, including the matter of specie payment for government revenues, Webster revealed an amazing knowledge of and devotion to sound principles of public finance. In the discussion of the tariff he proclaimed himself not an enemy of manufactures, but as opposed to rearing them in hotbeds. His loyalty to the mercantile interests of his section, however, caused him to oppose the high protective duties of the tariff of 1816, especially those originally proposed for cotton, iron, and hemp, which menaced the imports of New England and threatened to add to the cost of ship-building.

In August 1816, midway in his second term in Congress, Webster transferred his residence to Boston, where he sidetracked politics for a law practice that was soon bringing in $15,000 a year. During his last winter at Washington, he had given much of his time to legal work. He was retained before the Supreme Court in three important prize cases and was soon to add to his laurels in the Dartmouth College case. As a result of the complicated operation of party politics in New Hampshire, Webster's alma mater had become. a pawn upon the political chess board. A Republican legislature in 1816 enacted a law changing- the character of the institution and its governing body, placing it under the thumb of the general court. A suit in which the college trustees sought to defend their rights against the new political forces was carried to the New Hampshire superior court, from which it was appealed to the United States Supreme Court. Webster, after accepting a small fee from the other side, had revealed his sympathies with the college trustees (Fuess, I, 220-21). He had closed the argument for them before the superior court and now for a fee of $1,000, out of which he was to engage an associate, he was placed in charge of the case in the Supreme Court. The notes and briefs of his colleagues furnished most of his materials, but these he carefully overhauled and brilliantly presented (Writings and Speeches, X, 194-233). He closed with an appeal in which with consummate pathos he presented the case of the small college which he loved as the case of every college in the land. When on February 2, 1819, the Court in its decision completely upheld the college and its counsel (4 Wheaton, 518), Webster became in the opinion of many the foremost lawyer of the time. Three weeks after the Dartmouth College victory he appeared for the Bank of the United States in McCulloch vs. Maryland (Writings and Speeches, XV, 261-67) and received a fee of $2,000 for his services. In three other important cases involving grave constitutional issues that shortly came before the Supreme Court, Webster was to play an important part (Gibbons vs. Ogden, Osborn vs. Bank of the United States, Ogden vs. Saunders; Charles Warren, The Supreme Court in United States History, 1922, I, 476-88; II, 59, 90, 147-48).

In the midst of a busy law practice Webster could not keep out of the public eye. In December 1819 he opposed the admission of Missouri as a slave state and drafted the memorial of a Boston protest meeting. He made the feature address in favor of free trade at a meeting of New England importers in Faneuil Hall in the autumn of 1820. He was chosen as a presidential elector in the campaign of that year. He played an influential but conservative role in the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1820-21 and helped to hold the democratic forces in check (Fuess, I, 273-80). On December 22, 1820, he delivered at Plymouth a powerful oration in celebration of the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. Achieving another great oratorical triumph at the laying of the cornerstone of the Bunker Hill monument on June 17, 1825, he made popular the occasional oratory that was to thrive for decades. He served for a brief period in the Massachusetts House of Representatives in the spring of 1822. In the fall he was drafted to represent Boston in Congress and was promptly made chairman of the judiciary committee when he took his seat in December 1823. A brilliant oration on Greek Independence (January 19, 1824) signalized his return to the national political arena, but he was soon busied with less romantic topics. The tariff question-to him at this time "a tedious, disagreeable subject"-was now to the fore and the financiers, merchants, and ship-builders of Boston expected him to challenge Henry Clay's arguments for protection. Accordingly, on April 1, 2, 1824, Webster attacked the proposed bill and its principles and announced his inability to accord it his vote (Writings and Speeches, V, 94-149).

In the preliminaries of the presidential contest of 1824 Webster's private choice was Calhoun; he shared the distrust of New England Federalists for John Quincy Adams. Busied with his own reelection he avoided any formal commitment, but in the contest in the House he gave his vote to Adams and influenced others in the same direction. Webster had hopes of the mission to Great Britain but Adams showed no inclination to gratify him. Yet, as party lines reshaped themselves under the new administration, Webster became an increasingly loyal supporter. He supported the President's doctrine on internal improvements, pleading for a truly national interest to justify federal aid; he led the futile fight for a revision of the federal judicial system; he made an eloquent appeal for representation in the congress at Panama. Reelected to Congress almost unanimously, he championed the President in the bitter dispute with Georgia over the Cherokee lands. All the while Webster kept up a busy practice before the Supreme Court and other courts of the country.

In June 1827 he was elected to the United States Senate. The death of Mrs. Webster (January 21, 1828) temporarily destroyed his zest for work and his interest in public affairs. But soon he was in the thick of the fight that accompanied the passage of the tariff act of 1828. The Webster of this period was less satisfied than hitherto with economic theories and more concerned with the realities of life. He had established intimate associations with the Lawrences and Lowells and the mill-owners of his state generally, and had taken a small block of stock when the Merrimack Manufacturing Company was incorporated in 1822 (Fuess, I, 341). The tariff of 1824 had been followed by a vast increase of investment in wool manufacturing and Webster was now (May 9, 1828) frank in stating that nothing was left to New England "but to consider that the government had fixed and determined its own policy; and that policy was protection" (Writings and Speeches, V, 230). Since the new bill, with all its "abominations," did grant the protection to woolens which the act of 1824 had by implication pledged, he accorded his active support to the measure and helped accomplish its passage. Henceforth, Webster was an aggressive champion of protection.

The months that followed brought bitter disappointments: Adams was defeated for reelection by Jackson, and Webster's favorite brother, Ezekiel, whom he helped launch a career in New Hampshire politics, died. His energy seemed to ebb, and he wondered at times whether he was not growing old. But life took on new meaning following his marriage on December 12, 1829, to Caroline Le Roy, a young and popular representative of New York sophistication, and new and stirring events were ahead. Another month and he was in the thick of the battle against the Calhoun doctrine of nullification. With leonine grace and energy and in the rich tones of his oratory, he met the challenge of Calhoun's mouthpiece, Robert Y. Hayne [q.v.]; rising to the height of his forensic abilities in this famous debate of January 1830 (Ibid., V, 248-69; VI, 3-75), he won what his admirers hailed as a brilliant victory over the cause of state rights and nullification. Praising the Union and what it had accomplished and still promised to achieve for the nation, he declared that in origin it preceded the states and insisted that the Constitution was framed by the people, not as a compact but to create a government sovereign within the range of the powers assigned to it, with the Supreme Court as the only proper arbiter of the extent of these powers. Nullification could result only in violence and civil war, he proclaimed; he was for "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!" No wonder that, with the plaudits of his audience still ringing in his ears, with the nation-wide fame achieved in this great outburst of eloquence, rosy dreams of the White House continued henceforth to play in Webster's mind.

The tariff problem which had aroused Calhoun and the South still remained. Southern efforts to force a reduction of duties led to the measure of July 1832 in which Webster was concerned primarily with maintaining protection upon woolen cloths. But even the lower duties of this act did not satisfy South Carolina which forced the issue of nullification in the ordinance passed by a convention of that state in November. Webster made clear his intention to support the President in his defiance of the nullifiers and crossed lances with Calhoun in an important debate the following February (Ibid., VI, 181-238). Meantime, against his advice, Clay joined with the anti-tariff leaders in pressing legislation agreeable to the latter; finally in March 1833 the "Compromise Tariff" was enacted. Bitterly disappointed, Webster voted with the opposition. The only satisfaction he could find in the outcome was in the thought that "the events of the winter have tended to strengthen the union of the States, and to uphold the government" (Ibid., XVII, 537). To this end and for the honor of being known as the "Defender of the Constitution," Webster had sacrificed for the time even his lucrative Supreme Court practice.

Politics had developed even new intricacies. The opposition forces of varying views but with common interests in vested rights had combined in the Whig party. Naturally, Webster joined the new coalition. Any temptation toward continued cooperation with Jackson was removed by the latter's war on the Bank of the United States, which Webster supported both on principle and as a profitable client. There was the further fact that Webster, who was as careless in handling his own money as he was profound in his mastery of the principles of public finance, was heavily indebted to the bank for loans extended to him. He had actively advocated the recharter bill and had vigorously condemned Jackson's veto, especially the constitutional grounds that it set forth. Reelected to the Senate in 1833, Webster regarded Jackson's removal of deposits from the bank as presenting an issue that might lead to the presidential office. He distinguished himself, however, by the constructive quality, in contrast to the personal vituperation of his associates, that marked his reply to Jackson's protest against the resolution of censure which the Senate had adopted. As the election of 1836 drew near the Whigs of the Massachusetts legislature nominated him as their candidate. With other Whig nominees in the field, however, he had few enthusiastic supporters outside of New England and Pennsylvania, despite the friendly visit he had paid to the West in the summer of 1833, and he received only the electoral vote of Massachusetts.

Following this defeat, he gave serious consideration to retirement from active politics, either to recoup his fortune, which had suffered with his law practice, or to improve his presidential chances for 1840. Just at this time, one of the worst for profitable investment, he was acquiring with borrowed money extensive land holdings in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin. His interests were largely speculative, except that he planned a huge country estate near La Salle, Illinois, which was for a time operated by his son, Fletcher. His own personal interests continued in his seaside home at Marshfield where, with the continual lure of "the sea, the sea," he lived in almost feudal ease among devoted retainers and entertained with a lavish hand. Unable to realize upon his ill-timed investments, he was increasingly harassed by his creditors and financial embarrassment haunted him to the end. Only the willingness of his wealthy friends to be levied upon in emergency saved him from actual disgrace.

His Massachusetts followers, however, would not consent to his retirement. After another Western tour-which was a veritable series of ovations-during which the panic of 1837 broke, he returned to the special session of Congress and took a brilliant part in the Whig fight against Van Buren's sub-treasury plan, again breaking lances with Calhoun.. The question of slavery and the right of petition brought similar clashes and Webster was impressed with the storm clouds so ominous for the future. In the summer of 1839, following reelection, he and his family visited England where he hoped to find buyers for his western lands and to acquaint himself still further with the details of the menacing boundary dispute between Maine and Canada. He returned to find that the Whigs had nominated General Harrison for the presidency and he participated in the campaign with all the more zest because he expected it to bring to a close his senatorial career, with retirement to the bar in the event of Van Buren's reelection and the prospect of a cabinet appointment if Harrison should succeed.

The victorious Harrison made Webster secretary of state, after having paid a tribute to his knowledge of public finance by offering the alternative of appointment to the Treasury Department. On Harrison's death a month later, John Tyler, his successor, retained the cabinet in office. Webster had anticipated the enactment of a series of Whig measures such as those for which Henry Clay made himself the spokesman in the ensuing months (Writings and Speeches, XVIII, 100). Soon, however, President Tyler, a Southern Whig of the state-rights school, became involved in a dispute with the Clay following when he successively vetoed the two measures by which the Whigs sought to reestablish a United States bank. In the split that followed all the members of Tyler's cabinet except Webster resigned. The latter, who was extremely unhappy about these conditions and suspicious of the leadership of Clay, tried to play a conciliatory role. He regretted "the violence & injustice" which had "characterized the conduct of the Whig leaders"; he was determined, moreover, not to "throw the great foreign concerns of the country into disorder or danger, by any abrupt party proceeding" (Ibid., XVI, 386; XVIII, I 10). He was referring to the, complicated negotiations over the Maine boundary which, with consummate skill, tact, and dignity and with the cordial cooperation of the President, he carried on and brought to a successful adjustment in the Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842. In this agreement was included an arrangement for joint cruising squadrons to operate off the coast of Africa in the suppression of the slave trade, which was expected to terminate a long-standing controversy over the right of search. His eminently satisfactory discharge of his duties in the State Department included successful negotiations with Portugal, important discussions with Mexico, and the preliminaries to the opening of diplomatic relations with China which led to the commercial treaty negotiated by Caleb Cushing in 1844. Meantime, he rejoiced in the enactment of a Whig tariff (1842) which wiped out what seemed to him the iniquities of the measure of 1833 and returned to the principle of protection.

Webster, who had for some time been under strong Whig pressure to resign, at length with some. reluctance (May 8, 1843) left the only office which had ever allowed reasonable satisfaction for his ambition and his talents. He had aspired to a diplomatic mission to England and had tried to juggle events to that end, but fate dictated his retirement to private life (Fuess, II, 125-28). Burdened with debt, he returned to meet the heavy demands for his legal services that promised to replenish his exchequer. A seat in the Senate was awaiting his convenience and the returned statesman, convinced that the sober business men and conservatives of Massachusetts had never deserted him, took satisfaction in a reconciliation with his old party associates in which he felt no necessity for offering apologies for his recent independent course. He cooperated cheerfully in support of Clay's candidacy for the presidency in the campaign of 1844 and in the following winter allowed himself to be returned to the Senate.

Devoted to the vested interests of his state indeed, a virtual pensioner dependent upon their bounty-Webster deemed it his "especial business" as a member of Congress "to look to the preservation of the great industrial interests of the country" from Democratic free-trade propensities (Writings and Speeches, XVIII, 231; see also Ibid., IV, 47, -XVI, 431-32). All the activities of the protectionists, however, did not prevent the reductions under the Walker Tariff of 1846. Meanwhile, as he had feared, the annexation of Texas had been followed by war with Mexico. Webster had opposed the acquisition of Texas and the resulting extension of slavery and now joined in the Whig policy of condemning the war. He held, however, that supplies should be voted as long as the war was not connected with territorial aggrandizement and that the struggle should be brought to a speedy and successful termination. To this end he gave his second son, Major Edward Webster, who died of exposure in service near Mexico city.

Though Webster, impervious to the lure of empire, introduced resolutions repudiating all thought of the dismemberment of Mexico (Congressional Globe, 29 Congress, 2 Session, p. 422), the war ended in a treaty which gave the United States a vast domain carved out of this neighbor republic. Should the new territory be dedicated to freedom or be thrown open to the westward march of negro slavery, was the inevitable question that arose. Webster had been from the start a strong critic of
the peculiar institution of the South as "a great moral and political evil," but had conceded that within the Southern states it was a matter of domestic policy, "a subject within the exclusive control of the States themselves" (Writings and Speeches, XVIII, 353; XII, 210). He voted consistently for the Wilmot Proviso, but preferred the " no-territory" basis that would prevent a controversy from arising over slavery. With the triumph of the expansionists he saw nothing in the future but "contention, strife, and agitation" (Fuess, II, 171). Dreams of the presidency still haunted him. In the spring of 1847 he had made a Southern tour in which he was dined and wined until his body and spirits drooped. Even after his recuperation at Marshfield and his return to court for many a strenuous session, he took it for granted, at the age of sixty-six, that people were beginning to say, "He is not the man he was" (Writings and Speeches, XVIII, 267). The death of his daughter Julia, who had married Samuel Appleton. Appleton, and of his son Edward depressed him even more. Of his children only his son Fletcher survived him. When out of sheer expediency his party turned to a military hero, General Zachary Taylor, he acquiesced in his own repudiation with what grace he could.

In the first winter of the new administration Webster beheld with alarm a serious crisis in the sectional controversy. The abolitionist extremists were advocating a dissolution of the Union and the anti-slavery forces in Congress were bent upon pressing their strength to accomplish the exclusion of slavery from the territories, while Southern leaders, increasingly conscious of the seriousness of the minority status of the South, were developing a sense of Southern nationality and preparing, if need be, to launch a movement for a separate Southern confederacy. Like other conservative statesmen, Webster came to feel that the Union was seriously at stake and was determined to do all in his power to avert the danger. It must not be overlooked that Webster, as the champion of protection, was alarmed to find tile continued discussion of the slavery question an obstacle to Whig efforts at tariff revision, causing Southern Whigs whose rights, property, and feeling had been constantly assailed to argue that they would never "give a single vote for the Tariff until this Slavery business is settled," and that North- ern men would have to "take care of their own interests" (Ibid., XVI, 541; XVIII, 391). To Webster the more important public question of the tariff was being sacrificed to the slavery controversy (Ibid., XVIII, 370). He had, therefore, become increasingly annoyed at the militant intransigentism of the anti-slavery forces, especially those who would not believe that "I am an anti-slavery man unless I repeat the declaration once a week" (Ibid., XVI, 498). While he believed in the power of Congress legally to exclude slavery from the territories, he had stated as early as 1848 that there was "no longer any important practical question" as to slavery extension (Ibid., XVIII, 283). He therefore rose on March 7, 1850, "to beat down the Northern and the Southern follies, now raging in equal extremes" (Ibid., XVI, 534).

In a well-considered speech he declared himself for Clay's compromise measures and poured oil on troubled waters. He spoke "not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but a s an American" (Ibid., X, 57). Slavery was an evil but not so great an evil as disunion. There could1 be no peaceful secession, he informed the South. On the other hand, he condemned the unnecessary severity of the anti-slavery forces and admitted that Northerners had not lived up to their obligations to return fugitive slaves. Congressional prohibition in the territories was useless since a law of nature had settled "beyond all terms of human enactment, that slavery cannot exist in California or New Mexico" (Ibid., X, 82). To the conservative element of the country Webster's performance seemed "Godlike"; but the anti-slavery men, including those of his own party, could see him only as a fallen star. Nor did he recover their good graces. Webster became, after Taylor's death, secretary of state in Fillmore's cabinet (July 22, 1850). He supported the legislation that substantially covered the ground of Clay's compromise measures and followed with concern the storm that still raged. Even as late as the summer of 1851 the question of secession was being discussed in certain Southern states and Webster felt called upon to write a timely letter denying the right of secession and denouncing it as revolution (Ibid., XVI, 622- 23). In the State Department Webster conscientiously and creditably performed the duties of his office, writing the famous "Hulsemann letter" in reproof of the attitude of the Austrian charge toward American policy in the Hungarian revolution and dealing with more than ordinary diplomatic difficulties with Spain, Mexico, Peru, and Great Britain. His presidential aspirations were again revived in 1852, without serious embarrassment to his relations with Fillmore who was also a candidate. But both men were shelved by the Whigs and, sick in mind and body, Webster repudiated General Scott's nomination and prophesied the downfall of his party.

As the summer progressed, serious illness and suffering stared from his dark countenance. Always fond of the good things of life, he had found since his second marriage increasing opportunity for self-indulgence. Lavish hospitalities, with good food and good drink given and received, made him grow portly though rarely sluggish. Only his active life and early rising kept down the inroads of disease. His annual hay fever became increasingly more distressing. Financial worries pressed down upon him and made him wish at times that he "had been born a miser" (Ibid., XVI, 636). By autumn the inroads of a fatal malady, cirrhosis of the liver, had marked his days and he died on October 24, 1852, murmuring, "I still live."

Two score years in the political arena revealed in Daniel Webster two seemingly contrasting but naturally allied forces. Eloquent champion of the American Union, he was also the special advocate of the new industrial interests then so rapidly forging to the fore in the national economy. In their behalf the leonine Daniel, idol of the "best" people of his state and of his section, sacrificed the popular following that would gladly have rallied to the standard of a great democratic chieftain. The penetrating logic and burning eloquence of his oratory, the masterful and magnetic quality of his personality, contributed little toward bringing to him the support of the toiling masses. Life therefore became for Webster a series of great frustrations. A great constitutional lawyer, he found his equals, or betters, among his eminent contemporaries. His victories in statecraft and diplomacy were never on a par with his soaring ambitions. The presidential office seemed to have been reserved for men of less distinction. Even his personal fortunes failed to bring him the sense of security that often assuages frustration. Withal, however, perhaps no Northerner left so strong an impression upon the political life of this great "middle period," or made a more substantial contribution to the preservation of the Union in the supreme test of the sixties.

[The first attempt at general publication of "Webster's works resulted in The Works of Daniel Webster (6 volumes, 185 1), ed. by Edward Everett; and in The Private Correspondence of Daniel Webster (2 volumes, 1857), ed. by Fletcher Webster, which included his brief autobiography as written in 1829. Collections of his manuscripts were later made, the most complete being that of the New Hampshire Historical Society at Concord. The Sanborn collection in New York City is less extensive; the Greenough collection in Washington (Library of Congress) is made up largely of letters received from Webster's correspondents; and the Massachusetts Historical Society collection is very limited. Important additions, largely of unpublished items selected from the New Hampshire collection, were made available in The Letters of Daniel Webster (1902), ed. by C.H. Van Tyne; an effort at publishing his complete works was made in the National ed. under the title, The Writings and Speeches of Daniel Webster (18 volumes, 1903), ed. by J. W. McIntyre. The earliest biography, prepared with Webster's approval, is S. L. Knapp, A Memoir of the Life of Daniel Webster (1831). C. W. March, Reminiscences of Congress (1850), later published as Daniel Webster and His Contemporaries (1852), is a reminiscent account by a wealthy friend. Immediately following Webster's death, a reminiscent biography appeared in the account of his private secret ary, Charles Lanman, The Private Life of Daniel Webster (1852), which the family made an attempt to suppress. Other gossipy narratives are Peter Harvey, Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Daniel Webster (1877); and the brief "Reminiscences of Daniel Webster" by William Plumer, included in the National ed., XVII, 546-67 Personal recollections give value to the work of his literary executor, G. T. Curtis, Life of Daniel Webster (2 volumes, 1870). H. C. Lodge, Daniel Webster (1883), the first brief formal biography, is colored by the abolitionist tradition and influenced by the highly prejudicial chapter on Webster in James Parton, Famous Americans of Recent Times (1867). After a number of rather perfunctory lives came the more penetrating work of S. G. Fisher, The True Daniel Webster (1911). Recent biographies, including F. A. Ogg, Daniel Webster (19 14) and S. H. Adams, The Godlike Daniel (1930), have been overshadowed by the excellent and more nearly definitive C. M. Fuess, Daniel Webster (2 volumes, 1930). Among numerous special works and articles particularly worthy of mention are G. T. Curtis, The Last Years of Daniel Webster (1878); E. P. Wheeler, Daniel Webster, The Expounder of the Constitution (1905); Gamaliel Bradford, "Daniel Webster," in As God Made Them (1929); R. L. Carey, Daniel Webster as an Economist (1929); H. D. Foster, " Webster's Seventh of March Speech and the Secession Movement, 1850," in American Historical Review, January 1922; V. L. Parrington, "Daniel Webster, Realist and Constitutionalist," in The Romantic Revolution in America (1927); articles by C. A. Duniway in S. F. Bemis, The American Secretaries of State and Their Diplomacy, volumes V, VI (1928). There is an excellent bibliography in The Cambridge History of American Literature, volume II (1918), pp. 480-88. For an obituary, see Boston Daily Advertiser, October 25, 1852.]

A. C. C.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 406-415:

WEBSTER, Daniel, statesman, born in Salisbury (now Franklin), N.H., 18 January, 1782; died in Marshfield, Massachusetts, 24 October, 1852, was the second son of Ebenezer Webster by his second wife, Abigail Eastman. […]

[… In] 1845, Mr. Webster was re-elected to the senate. The two principal questions of Mr. Polk's administration related to the partition of Oregon and the difficulties that led to war with Mexico. The Democrats declared that we must have the whole of Oregon up to the parallel of 54° 40', although the 49th parallel had already been suggested as a compromise-line. In a very able speech at Faneuil hall, Mr. Webster advocated the adoption of this compromise. The speech was widely read in England and on the continent of Europe, and Mr. Webster followed it by a private letter to Mr. Macgregor, of Glasgow, expressing a wish that the British government might see fit to offer the 49th parallel as a boundary-line. The letter was shown to Lord Aberdeen, who adopted the suggestion, and the dispute accordingly ended in the partition of Oregon between the United States and Great Britain. This successful interposition disgusted some Democrats who were really desirous of war with England, and Charles J. Ingersoll, member of congress from Pennsylvania and chairman of the committee on foreign affairs, made a scandalous attack upon Mr. Webster, charging him with a corrupt use of public funds. Mr. Webster replied in his great speech of 6 and 7 April, 1846, in defence of the Ashburton treaty. The speech was a triumphant vindication of his public policy, and in the thorough investigation of details that followed, Mr. Ingersoll's charges were shown to be utterly groundless.

During the operations on the Texas frontier, which brought on war with Mexico, Mr. Webster was absent from Washington. In the summer of 1847 he travelled through the southern states, and was everywhere received with much enthusiasm. He opposed the prosecution of the war for the sake of acquiring more territory, because he foresaw that such a policy must speedily lead to a dangerous agitation of the slavery question. The war brought General Zachary Taylor into the foreground as a candidate for the presidency, and some of the Whig managers actually proposed to nominate Mr. Webster as vice-president on the same ticket with General Taylor. He indignantly refused to accept such a proposal; but Mr. Clay's defeat in 1844 had made many Whigs afraid to take him again as a candidate. Mr. Webster was thought to be altogether too independent, and there was a feeling that General Taylor was the most available candidate and the only one who could supplant Mr. Clay. These circumstances led to Taylor's nomination, which Mr. Webster at first declined to support. He disapproved of soldiers as presidents, and characterized the nomination as “one not fit to be made.” At the same time he was far from ready to support Mr. Van Buren and the Free-soil party, yet in his situation some decided action was necessary. Accordingly, in his speech at Marshfield, 1 September, 1848, he declared that, as the choice was really between General Taylor and General Cass, he should support the former. It has been contended that in this Mr. Webster made a great mistake, and that his true place in this canvass would have been with the Free-soil party. He had always been opposed to the further extension of slavery; but it is to be borne in mind that he looked with dread upon the rise of an anti-slavery party that should be supported only in the northern states. Whatever tended to array the north and the south in opposition to each other Mr. Webster wished especially to avoid. The ruling purpose of his life was to do what he could to prevent the outbreak of a conflict that might end in the disruption of the Union; and it may well have seemed that there was more safety in sustaining the Whig party in electing its candidate by the aid of southern votes than in helping into life a new party that should be purely sectional. At the same time, this cautious policy necessarily involved an amount of concession to southern demands far greater than the rapidly growing anti- slavery sentiment in the northern states would tolerate. No doubt Mr. Webster's policy in 1848 pointed logically toward his last great speech, 7 March, 1850, in which he supported Mr. Clay's elaborate compromises for disposing of the difficulties that had grown out of the vast extension of territory consequent upon the Mexican war. (See CLAY, HENRY.) This speech aroused intense indignation at the north, and especially in Massachusetts. It was regarded by many people as a deliberate sacrifice of principle to policy. Mr. Webster was accused of truckling to the south in order to obtain southern support for the presidency. Such an accusation seems inconsistent with Mr. Webster's character, and a comprehensive survey of his political career renders it highly improbable. The “Seventh-of-March.” speech may have been a political mistake; but one cannot read it to-day, with a clear recollection of what was thought and felt before the civil war, and doubt for a moment the speaker's absolute frankness and sincerity. He supported Mr. Clay's compromises because they seemed to him a conclusive settlement of the slavery question. The whole territory of the United States, as he said, was now covered with compromises, and the future destiny of every part, so far as the legal introduction of slavery was concerned, seemed to be decided. As for the regions to the west of Texas, he believed that slavery was ruled out by natural conditions of soil and climate, so that it was not necessary to protect them by a Wilmot proviso. As for the fugitive-slave law, it was simply a provision for carrying into effect a clause of the constitution, without which that instrument could never have been adopted, and in the frequent infraction of which Mr. Webster saw a serious danger to the continuance of the Union. He therefore accepted the fugitive-slave law as one feature in the proposed system of compromises; but, in accepting it, he offered amendments, which, if they had been adopted, would have gone far toward depriving it of some of its most obnoxious and irritating features. By adopting these measures of compromise, Mr. Webster believed that the extension of slavery would have been given its limit, that the north would, by reason of its free labor, increase in preponderance over the south, and that by and by the institution of slavery, hemmed in and denied further expansion, would die a natural death. That these views were mistaken, the events of the next ten years showed only too plainly, but there is no good reason for doubting their sincerity. There is little doubt, too, that the compromises had their practical value in postponing the inevitable conflict for ten years, during which the relative strength of the north was increasing and a younger generation was growing up less tolerant of slavery and more ready to discard palliatives and achieve a radical cure. So far as Mr. Webster's moral attitude was concerned, although he was not prepared for the bitter hostility that his speech provoked in many quarters, he must nevertheless have known that it was quite as likely to injure him at the north as to gain support for him in the south, and his resolute adoption of a policy that he regarded as national rather than sectional was really an instance of high moral courage. It was, however, a concession that did violence to his sentiments of humanity, and the pain and uneasiness it occasioned is visible in some of his latest utterances.

On President Taylor's death, 9 July, 1850, Mr. Webster became President Fillmore's secretary of state. An earnest attempt was made on the part of his friends to secure his nomination for the presidency in 1852; but on the first ballot in the convention he received only 29 votes, while there were 131 for General Scott and 133 for Mr. Fillmore. The efforts of Mr. Webster's adherents succeeded only in giving the nomination to Scott. The result was a grave disappointment to Mr. Webster. He refused to support the nomination, and took no part in the campaign. His health was now rapidly failing. He left Washington, 8 September, for the last time, and returned to Marshfield, which he never left again, except on 20 September for a brief call upon his physician in Boston. By his own request there were no public ceremonies at his funeral, which took place very quietly, 29 September, at Marshfield. Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 406-415.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

DANIEL WEBSTER was born in Salisbury, at the head of the Merrimack river, in the state of New Hampshire, on the 18th of January, 1782. His father, always a farmer, but at one period an officer in the war of the revolution, and for many years judge of the court "of common pleas, was a man of a strongly marked character, full of decision, integrity, firmness, and good sense. He died in 1806, having lived, to see the spot where he had, with great difficulty, established himself; changed from being the frontier of civilization, to be the centre of a happy population, abounding in prosperity and resources.

The early youth of Mr. Webster was passed in the midst of the forest, where the means for forming the character we now witness in him, seemed absolutely wanting; and but for the characteristic policy of New England, which carries its free schools even into the wilderness, he would have passed the "mute inglorious" life, which is entailed upon the peasantry of less favored countries. But the first upward aspiration, notwithstanding the unfavorable circumstances in which he was placed, was early given; and the impulse thus imparted to his young mind was never lost. Struggling always with difficulties, and not without great sacrifices on the part of his family, he was prepared for a higher course of education; and, at last, was graduated, in 1801, at Dartmouth college, having already developed faculties, which, so far as his academic career was concerned, left all rivalship far behind him.

His professional studies in the law were begun in his native town, under Mr. Thompson, soon afterwards a member of congress, and completed in. Boston, under Mr. Gore, afterwards governor of Massachusetts, and one of its senators in congress, whose whole character, private, political, and professional, from its elevation, purity, and dignity, was singularly fitted to influence a young man of quick and generous feelings, who already. perceived within himself the impulse of talents and the stirring of an ambition, whose direction was yet to be determined. It was in Boston, that Mr. Webster was admitted to the bar, in 1805; and it is a fact worth remembering, that, when Mr. Gore presented him to the court, he ventured to make a prediction respecting his pupil's future eminence, which all his present fame has not more than fulfilled.

Mr. Webster began the practice of his profession at Boscawen, a small village near the place of his nativity; but, in 1807, removed to Portsmouth, the commercial capital of New Hampshire. There he at once rose to the rank of the most prominent in his profession; and under the influence of such intercourse as that with Mr. Smith, then chief justice of New Hampshire, and Mr. Mason, the leading counsel in the state, and of the first order of minds any where, he went through a stern intellectual training, and acquired that unsparing logic, which now renders him in his turn so formidable an adversary.

His first entrance on public life, was in 1812, soon after the declaration of war, when, at the early age of thirty, he was chosen one of the representatives of his native state to the thirteenth congress. His position there was a difficult one, and he felt it to be so. He was opposed to the policy of the war; the state he represented was earnestly opposed to it; and he had always, especially in the eloquent and powerful memorial from the great popular meeting in Rockingham, expressed himself frankly on the whole subject. But he was now called into the councils of the government, which was carrying on the war itself. He felt it to be his duty, therefore, to make no opposition for opposition's sake; though, at the same time, he felt it to be no less his duty, to take heed that, neither the constitution, nor the interests of the nation, were endangered or sacrificed. When, therefore, Mr. Monroe's bill, for a sort of conscription, was introduced, - he joined with Mr. Eppes, and other friends of the administration, and defeated a project, which, except in a moment of great anxiety and excitement, would probably never have been proposed. But when, on the other hand, the bill, "for encouraging enlistments," was before the house, he made a speech, in January, 1814, in favor of adequate naval defence, arid a perfect military protection of the northern frontier, which, now the passions of that stormy period are hushed, will find an echo in the heart of every lover of his country.

On the subject of a national bank, he took the same independent and patriotic ground, and maintained it with equal vigor and firmness. The administration, having found a bank indispensable, applied to congress for one, with fifty millions of capital, five only of which
were to be in specie, and the rest in the depreciated government securities of the period, with an obligation to lend the treasury thirty millions; but relieved from the necessity of paying its own notes in gold and silver. The project of -such a bank, having passed the senate, came to the house, and was there discussed, December, 1814, and January, 1815. Mr. Webster opposed it, on the ground, that it would only increase the embarrassments in the fiscal operations of the nation, and the pecuniary transactions of individuals, which were already in confusion, by the refusal of all the state banks south of New England, to pay in specie. He was, no doubt, right; and, probably, nobody now, on reviewing the discussion of the whole subject, would doubt it. But he carried his point, and defeated the bill, only by the casting vote of the speaker, Mr. Cheves.

Mr. Webster's opposition to the bank, however, had not been factious; and, therefore, the very next day, he took the initiative steps for bringing the whole subject immediately before the house again; and a sound, specie-paying bank, was 'almost as immediately agreed to; Mr. Webster, and most of his friends, voting for it. The bill, however, to establish it, was rejected by the president, on the ground, that it was not sufficient to meet the exigencies of the case; which, indeed, we now know no bank would have been able to meet; and thus the question was again brought into a severe and protracted discussion, which was ended only by the unexpected news of the peace, January 17, 1815.

But the peace brought with it other conflicts and trials of the same nature. When the bill for the present bank of, the United States was introduced, Mr. Webster opposed it, on the ground, that the capital proposed was too large, and that it contained a provision to authorize a suspension of specie payments. On both points, his opposition, with that of his friends, was successful; but still, lie was not satisfied with the bill; and the suggestions he made, predicting enormous subscriptions to the stock for purposes of speculation merely, and out of all proportion to the real ability of the subscribers, showed the statesman-like forecast, which has marked his whole political course; and were sadly justified by the difficulties that occurred in the early history of the bank itself.

Still less, however, was he satisfied with the condition of the circulating medium of the country, which was then fit neither for the safe management of the concerns of the government, nor for the security of private property. A large part of it consisted in the depreciated notes of the state banks, south of New England, in which even the revenue of the government was receivable, at the different custom houses; so that there was a difference, he declared, of at least twenty-five per cent. in the rates of duties collected in different parts of the country, according to the value of the paper medium in which they were paid. The vast mischief which would follow this state of things were at once foreseen by Mr. Webster; and he introduced a resolution, requiring the revenue of the United States to be collected only in the legal currency of the United States, or in bills equal to that currency in value. The passage of this resolution, the defeat of the paper currency bank proposed in 1814, and the establishment of the present specie-paying bank, have saved us from confusion and disasters, which Mr. Webster so clearly foresaw, and on which, now we understand more of their nature and extent, it is hardly possible to look back with composure.

The same principles and doctrines were again maintained by him, with equal steadiness, when the question of re-chartering the bank came up, in 1832. The objection of too large a capital was then removed, as he conceived, by the increased population, wealth, and wants of the country; and the objection to indiscriminate subscription could not recur, if the charter were renewed. Mr. Webster, therefore, sustained it; and when the president had placed his veto upon it, rejoined, not on the ground sometimes taken, that the president had exceeded his authority; but, on the ground that he had exercised it to the injury of the country, and that the reasons he had given for it were untenable.

In 1816, Mr. Webster determined to retire, at least for a time, from public life, and to change his residence. He had then lived in Portsmouth nine years, and they had been to him years of great happiness in his private relations, and, in his relations to the country, years of remarkable advancement and honor. But, in the disastrous fire, which, in 1813, destroyed a large part of that devoted town, he had sustained a heavy pecuniary loss, which the opportunities offered by his profession in New Hampshire were not likely to repair. He determined, therefore, to establish himself in a larger capital; and, in the summer of 1816, removed to Boston, where he has ever since resided.

His object was now professional occupation; and he devoted himself to it, for six or eight years, with unremitting assiduity; refusing to accept office, or to mingle in political discussion. His success was correspondent to his exertions. He was already known as a distinguished lawyer in his native state, and beginning to be known as such in Massachusetts. The Dartmouth college cause, which he argued, in March, 1818, in the supreme court of the United States, placed him in the first rank of American jurists, at the early age of thirty-six; and from that time his attendance on this great tribunal has been constantly secured by retainers in the most important causes; and the circle of his professional business, which has been regularly enlarging, has not been exceeded, if it has been equalled, by that of any other lawyer, who has ever appeared in the national forum. Few of his arguments, however, are reported, and even those few are exhibited only in a dry and technical outline. Among them, the most remarkable are, the case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, in 1824, involving the question of the steam-boat monopoly; and the case of Ogden vs. Saunders, 1827, involving the question of state insolvent laws, when they purport to absolve the party from the obligation of the contract. In these, and in all his other forensic efforts, we see what is most characteristic of Mr. Webster's mind as a lawyer: his clearness and downright simplicity in stating fads; his acute analysis of difficulties; his earnest pursuit of truth for truth's sake, and of the principles of law for the sake of right and justice; and his desire to attain them all by the most direct and simple means. It is this plainness, this simplicity, in fact, that makes him so. prevalent with the jury; and not only with the jury in court, but with the great jury of the whole people.

But, during the years just passed over, Mr. Webster's success was not confined to the bar. In the year 1820-21, he was a member of a convention of delegates, assembled in Boston, to revise the constitution of Massachusetts, and exercised a preponderating influence in an assembly of greater dignity and talent than was ever. before collected in that ancient commonwealth. On the 22d of December, 1820, the day when the two hundredth year from the first landing of the forefathers, at Plymouth, was completed, Mr. Webster, by the sure indication of the public will, was summoned to that consecrated spot, and, in an address, which is the gravest of his published works, so spoke of the centuries past, that the centuries yet to come shall receive and remember his words. Again, in 1825, fifty years from the day when the solemn drama. of the. American revolution was opened, on Bunker's hill, Mr. Webster stood there, and interpreted to assembled thousands the feelings with which that great event will forever be regarded. Again, too, in the summer of 1826, he was called upon to commemorate the services which Adams and Jefferson had rendered, when they carried through the declaration of independence; and which they so mysteriously sealed, by their common death, exactly half a century afterwards. And finally, on the 22d of February, 1832, at the completion of a century from the birth of Washington, and in the city which bears his name, Mr. Webster exhibited him to the country as standing at the head alike of a new world, and of a new era, in the history of man. These four occasions were all memorable; as memorable, perhaps, as any that have occurred to Americans in our time; and the' genius of Mr. WEBSTER has sent them down, marked with its impress, to posterity.

But, during a part of the period over which we have slightly passed, he was again in public life. From 1823 to 1827, he was a member of the house of representatives, from the city of Boston, in the seventeenth and eighteenth congresses. His first distinguished effort, on this second appearance in the national councils, was his "Greek speech," in which, with the forecast of a statesman, he showed, as plainly .as events have since proved it, that the principles laid down by the great powers in Europe from the congress of Paris, in 1814, to that of Laybach, in 1821, as the basis on which to maintain the peace of the world, mistook the spirit of the age, and would speedily be overturned by the irresistible power of popular opinion. In 1824, he entered fully into the great discussions about the tariff; and examined the doctrines of exchange, and the balance of trade, with an ability which has prevented them from being since, what they had so often been before, subjects of crude and unsatisfactory controversy in both houses of congress. In 1825, he prepared and carried through the crimes act, which, as a just tribute to his address and exertions, his great wisdom and patient labor, already bears his name; .and, in the same session of congress, he defended, as he had defended them in 1816, the principles involved in the exercise of the power of internal improvements by the general government. These, with the discussions respecting the bill for enlarging the number of judges of the supreme court of the United States, and respecting the Panama mission, were the more prominent subjects on which Mr. Webster exhibited his remarkable powers during the four sessions in which he represented the city of Boston in the house of representatives.

In 1826, he was reelected, almost. unanimously, to represent the same district yet a third time; but, before he had taken his seat, a vacancy having occurred in the senate, he was chosen, without any regular opposition, to fill it; an honor, which was again conferred upon him in 1833, by a sort of general content and acclamation. 
How he has borne himself as a senator, is known to the whole country. No man has been found able to intercept from him the constant regard of the nation; so that, whatever he has said, has been watched and understood throughout the borders of the land, almost as familiarly and thoroughly as it has been at Washington. The speeches he has made on the great questions of the tariff, and of internal improvements; his beautiful defence of the bill for the relief of the surviving officers of the revolution; his report on the apportionment of representatives; and his statesman-like discussions respecting a national bank; are known to all who know anything about the affairs of the country. But, though the eyes of all have thus been fastened on him, in such a way, that nothing relating to him, can have escaped their notice, there are two occasions, where he has attracted a kind and degree of attention, which, as it is rarely given to any man in any country, is so much the more honorable whenever it is obtained. We refer now, of course, to the two great debates of 1830 and 1833, when he overthrew. the doctrine of nullification.

An attempt to put a construction upon the constitution, which has resulted in these doctrines, can be traced back as far as to May, 1828, when two or more meetings, of the South Carolina delegates, were held at General Hayne's lodgings, in Washington; and to the assembling of the legislature of South Carolina, in the autumn of the same year, when, on the 19th of December, a document, called, "An Exposition and Protest," prepared, as is understood, by Mr. Calhoun, then vice president of the United States, was produced, in order to exhibit and enforce those doctrines, on which that state relied for success in the contest into which she was then entering. In January, 1830, in the confident hope of obtaining further sanction to them, they were brought forward in the senate of the United States, by General Hayne; though the resolution, under color of which they were thus produced, had nothing to do with them. Mr. Webster was, therefore, in a measure, taken by surprise; but his whole life had been a preparation for an encounter with any man, who should assail the great principles of the federal constitution; and his speeches, on this occasion, in reply to General Hayne, though called from him almost without premeditation, are the result of principles which had grown up with him from his youth, and were now developed with all the matured power of his mind and strength.

The same consequences, or consequences even more honorable, to Mr. Webster, followed the attempt made in the winter of 1833.

Longacre, James B. & James Herring, National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.  Philadelphia: American Academy of Fine Arts, 1834-1839


WEBSTER, Delia, 1817-1876, Vergennes, Vermont, teacher, abolitionist.  Had station on the Underground Railroad in Trimble County, Kentucky.  She was arrested and convicted for aiding fugitive slaves.


WEBSTER, Edwin H., Member of the U.S. House of Representatives, voted for Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, abolishing slavery.

(Congressional Globe; Biographical Dictionary of the U.S. Congress 1774-1927 (1928)


WEBSTER, John C., Hopkinton, Massachusetts, Church Anti-Slavery Society, President, 1859-64.


WEBSTER, Nathan, Haverhill, Massachusetts, abolitionist, Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, Vice-President, 1841-51.


WEBSTER, Noah, 1758-1843, lexicographer, lawyer, wrote against slavery.

(Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI, pp. 417-418; Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 594-597; Dumond, Dwight Lowell, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America, University of Michigan Press, 1961, p. 47; Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 92-93; Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1967, p. 172; American National Biography, Oxford University Press, New York, 2002, Volume 22, p. 874; Longacre, James B. & James Herring, National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.  Philadelphia: American Academy of Fine Arts, 1834-1839). 

Dictionary of American Biography, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1936, Volume 10, Pt. 1, pp. 594-597:

WEBSTER, NOAH (October 16, 1758-May 28, 1843), lexicographer, was sixth in descent from John Webster (d. April 5, 1661), an emigrant from England to Newtowne (now Cambridge), Massachusetts, c. 1630-33, who became one of the founders of the colony of Connecticut and, in 1656, its governor. John took up land in the township of Hartford, and it was in the village of West Hartford that the lexicographer was born, the fourth of the five children of Noah Webster (March 25, 1722-November 9, 1813) and his wife Mercy (baptized October 8, l 727-died October 5, l794), daughter -of Eliphalet Steele and great-great-grand-daughter of William Bradford [q.v.], second governor of the Plymouth colony. The elder Noah owned a farm of ninety acres in West Hartford. He served as justice of the peace, as deacon of the parish church (Congregational), and as captain on the "a1arm list" of the local militia. He and his wife were married January 12, 1749. Young Noah early showed a bent for books, and his father after some hesitation decided to send him to college. He got his preparatory training from the local minister, the Reverend Nathan Perkins, and from a Mr. Wales, schoolmaster of Hartford. In September 1774 he was admitted to Yale College, and four years later was duly graduated with the degree of B.A., though the elder Noah had to mortgage his farm to meet his son's modest college bills and the War of the American Revolution interfered markedly with academic studies at Yale as elsewhere.

Webster had settled upon a legal career, but his father was unable to help him further and for several years after his graduation from college he earned his living by teaching and clerical work, reading law with various jurists in his spare time. In 1781 he passed his examinations and was admitted to the bar at Hartford, but he did not begin active practice until 1789, and four years later gave up the law for, good. The beginnings of his true career go back to 1782 when, while teaching at Goshen, New York, he prepared an elementary spelling book, published at Hartford the next year as the first part of A Grammatical Institute of the English Language. The lnstit1ite was completed with a grammar (1784) and a reader (178 5); all three books were written for the use of- school children. In preparing the-series Webster was moved by patriotic as well as professional and scholarly considerations. He found the schoolbooks then in use deficient on various counts, not least in their neglect of the American scene. The introduction of his speller includes, among other things, a literary Declaration of Independence by which Webster lived and wrought the rest of his days. Later editions of speller and reader gave expression to Webster's patriotic purposes in their very titles: The American Spelling Book and An American Selection of Lessons in Reading and Speaking. The speller did not differ radically from previous spellers, and at first did not include the orthographical reforms introduced into later editions and now regularly associated with Webster's name, but it was well arranged, gave convenient rules of thumb, and had the clarity and freshness of presentation characteristic of its author. Above all, it was an American product, nicely calculated to meet the particular needs of the American schools of the day, an outgrowth, indeed, of Webster's own experience as a schoolmaster: In length of vogue and volume of sales, however, it surpassed all expectation. The first edition of 5000 copies was exhausted in little more than a year, and in revised editions, under various titles, the book continued to be issued well into the twentieth century. In 1837 Webster estimated that some 15,000,000 copies of his spelling-books had been printed, and by 1890 the number had risen to more than 60,000,000. The wide and long use of Webster's spellers had much to do with the standardization of spelling and, to a less degree, of pronunciation in the United States along lines differing somewhat from those that prevailed in the mother country. Webster's reader did not have the vogue of the speller, although it went through a number of editions. To the edition of 1787 were added, as Webster explained to Franklin, "some American pieces under the discovery, history, wars, geography, economy, commerce, government, &c. of this country ... in order to call the minds of our youth from ancient fables & modern foreign events, & fix them upon objects immediately interesting, in this country" (Ford, post, II, 454). The reader thus became a book patriotic enough to justify the insertion of the word American into its title. Webster's grammar, the second part of his Institute, was less successful, commercially, than the other parts.  The historian, however, reads it with interest and respect as a forerunner (in theory, at least) of the scientific English grammars of today, based not on rules taken from Latin grammar or pseudo-logical "principles," but on objective study of the actual phenomena of English speech.

Webster had hardly finished compiling his speller when the problem of the copyright presented itself. At that time the federal government had no authority in such a matter, and none of the newly established states had enacted a copyright law. With characteristic courage and, energy Webster began, in 1782, an agitation which cost him more time and money than he had anticipated but led to legislative provision of an American copyright. Webster's initiative and leadership in this agitation not only gave him a place in the annals of the day but also brought him into contact with many of the leaders of the young republic and set going the national reputation which he was to achieve. In particular, the copyright agitation took him into politics, and made him an ardent Federalist. Forced as he was to promote copyright legislation in thirteen capitals, he became one of the earliest advocates of a strong federal government, and in 1785 printed his views in a pamphlet called Sketches of American Policy, a pamphlet which won the interest of Washington and Madison, and, with an earlier series of articles in the Connecticut Courant (from August 26, 1783), gave Webster his start as journalist and pamphleteer. Of his other political writings of the decade ought to be mentioned here, if only for its characteristic timeliness, the pamphlet of October 1787, urging the adoption, by the several states, of the newly submitted federal Constitution.

Webster's activities in favor of copyright legislation took him as far south as Charleston, South Carolina, and involved much travel and long stays in the chief cities of the country. He earned his living during this period in various ways: by ordinary teaching, by holding singing-schools, and by giving public lectures. While in Baltimore, in the summer and fall of 1785, he wrote five papers on the mother tongue, and read them in public with such success that he was "induced to revise and continue reading them in other towns" (Ford, I, 141). This course of popular lectures, with additions and revisions, was published in 1789 under the title, Dissertations on the English Language. The added "Essay on a Reformed Mode of Spelling," included in the volume, is of special interest. Webster's lectures in Philadelphia had led to an acquaintance with Benjamin Franklin, and a subsequent correspondence between the two on spelling reform (a subject in which Franklin had long been interested) brought Webster back to Philadelphia in December 1786 for a visit which turned into a stay of ten months. The essay, and Webster's various experiments with a simplified spelling, grew out of this intercourse with Franklin. The boldness and sweep of Webster's original scheme appear plainly enough in a letter, dated March 31, 1786, which he wrote to George Washington. "I am encouraged," he says, "by the prospect of rendering my country some service, to proceed in my design of refining the language & improving our general system of education. Dr. Franklin has extended my views to a very simple plan of reducing the language to perfect regularity" (Ford, I, no). Franklin's phonetic alphabet, however, simple though it was, proved too radical for adoption by Webster, who for practical reasons gave up counsels of perfection in favor of a "sufficiently regular" orthography, and with the years yielded ground more and more to the traditional spellers, so that in the end little was left of his reforms. But if Webster proved unable to effect any substantial spelling reforms, his spellers and dictionaries, ironically enough, played a great part in strengthening the grasp of orthographical orthodoxy. The American people, ruthlessly school mastered year in year out, became rooted and grounded in the faith, and the reforms brought forward by later generations of scholars, with all the backing of the now full-fledged science of linguistics, failed to shake the hold of that traditional spelling which Webster so reluctantly had made his own.

It was during his second stay in Philadelphia, as supervisor of an Episcopal school, that Webster met Rebecca Greenleaf (May 27, 1766-June 25, 1847), daughter of William Greenleaf, a Boston merchant, and his wife Mary (Brown). Webster and Miss Greenleaf were married in Boston on October 26, 1789. They had two sons, one of whom died in infancy, and six daughters. Toward the end of 1787 Webster had settled in New York, as editor of a new venture called the American Magazine. The periodical had proved a commercial failure, and in December 1788 Webster had returned to Hartford, where he began his married life and practised law for several years. In 1793, however, he was induced to settle again in New York and take up once more the work of an editor. With the backing of certain prominent Federalists, he launched a daily newspaper, the Minerva, and a semi-weekly, the Herald, names which in 1797 were changed to Commercial Advertiser and Spectator respectively. His journalistic career lasted ten years, though in 1798 he removed to New Haven and thereafter had less and less to do with the details of management of his newspapers, which, as he tells us, "were established for the purpose of vindicating and supporting the policy of President Washington" (Ford, I, 386) and which became burdensome to him as time elapsed and political conditions changed. In particular, Hamilton's betrayal (as he felt) of President John Adams disheartened Webster and had much to do with his return to his first love, linguistic scholarship. In 1803 he succeeded in disposing of his newspapers and gave up journalism for good. Thenceforth he devoted himself wholeheartedly to what was to prove his chief title to fame, his work as a lexicographer.

A survey of Webster's more important writings up to this turning-point in his life brings out in striking fashion the versatility and productivity of the man. His schoolbooks, such as the three volumes of the Institute with their revisions, The Little Reader's Assistant, and the series called Elements of Useful Knowledge, gave Webster the income which enabled him to retire from journalism and devote himself to study. A popular volume of informal essays was The Prompter (1791). The Dissertations, mentioned above, were likewise designed for popular reading, but proved a commercial failure. In the economic field, various treatises by Webster moved Lecky to pronounce him "one of the best of the early economists of America" (A History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 1882, III, 3II). In the medical field Webster wrote, among other things, A Brief History of Epidemic and Pestilential Diseases (2 volumes, 1799), the standard work on the subject in its day. Of the many political writings, the "Curtius" articles (1795) on the Jay Treaty, the "Aristides" letter to Hamilton (1800), and the Ten Letters to Dr. Joseph Priestley (1800) may be mentioned. Webster's edition of John Winthrop's Journal (1790) is of special interest as a pioneer work in learned historical publication, while his Experiments Respecting Dew (begun in 1790, though not printed until 1809) hold an honorable place among the pioneer American essays in physical science. It has also justly been noted that Webster's activities as statistician and climatologist foreshadowed the work of the census and weather bureaus of later times. These many-sided labors proved an admirable preparation for lexicography, in which the investigator must take all knowledge for his province.

The first fruit of Webster's lexicographical activities was his small work, A Compendious Dictionary of the English Language (1806). In its compilation Webster learned the technique of lexicography and tried out ideas of his own, recording, for example, some 5000 words not included in previous dictionaries. Webster however thought of his first dictionary as only preparatory to a larger work, a work upon which he labored steadily for nearly twenty years. Finished in 1825, it came out in two quarto volumes in 1828 under the title, An American Dictionary of the English Language, probably the most ambitious publication ever undertaken, up to that time, upon American soil. Financially it proved a disappointment (though not a failure), but its merits at once gave it first place among English dictionaries. It marks, indeed, a definite advance in the science of lexicography. Webster established once for all the practice, already begun in his fir st dictionary, of freely recording non-literary words, even though he did not push his principles to their logical conclusion and record all words whatsoever, as present practice inclines more and more to do. He justly based his definitions upon the usage of American as well as British writers and speakers, and did not hesitate to record "Americanisms" which he deemed worthy. In defining a word, he proceeded from what he considered its original or primary meaning, and so far as possible derived the other meanings from the primary. In so doing he made many mistakes, because of the deficiencies of current linguistic knowledge, and in some respects he was not abreast with the times, being out of touch, for example, with the comparative and historical linguistic school of his contemporaries Rask, Grimm, and Bopp, but his principles of definition were sound, and the definitions themselves in many cases cannot be bettered today, for Webster was a born definer as well as a man of encyclopedic knowledge. The great weakness of the dictionary lies in its etymologies, which were largely out-of-date before the work came from the press. As a whole, Webster's American Dictionary was a scholarly achievement of the first order, richly deserving of its great reputation at home and abroad. His chief contemporary rival in the United States was Joseph Emerson Worcester [q.v.], whom he charged with plagiarism, but most of the "War of the Dictionaries" occurred after his own death.

In 1812, Webster removed from New Haven to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he felt he could live more cheaply and with fewer distractions from his scholarly labors. While at Amherst he became interested in local educational needs and helped to found Amherst College. In 1822, however, he returned to New Haven, where he continued to live the rest of his life, except for a year (1824-25) spent in lexicographical work in France and England, and a winter (1830-31) spent in Washington in successful agitation for a revision of the copyright law. His publications during what may be termed his lexicographical period include, besides five dictionaries with abridgments and revisions, a Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language (1807), a revision of the Authorized Version of the English Bible (1833), and various essays and addresses. Webster in early life was something of a freethinker, but in 1808 he became a convert to Calvinistic orthodoxy, and thereafter remained a devout Congregationalist.

[H. E. Scudder, Noah Webster (1881); Emily E. F. Ford, Notes on the Life of Noah Webster, ed. by Emily E. F. Skeel (2 volumes, 1912), including list of writings, volume II, 523-40, and list of " authorities cited"; H. R. Warfel, Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America (1936); C.-E. A. Winslow, "The Epidemiology of Noah Webster," Transaction Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, January 1934; F. B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, volume IV (1907); W. H. and M. R. Webster, History and Genealogy of the Governor John Webster Family (1915); D. S. Durrie, Steele Family (1859); J. E. Greenleaf, Genealogy of the Greenleaf Family (1896); obituary in New York Morning Express, May 3, 1843; public records; family letters.]

K. M.

Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 417-418:

WEBSTER, Noah, philologist, born in Hartford, Connecticut, 16 October, 1758; died in New Haven, Connecticut, 28 May, 1843. His father was a farmer, a descendant in the fourth generation of John Webster, who previous to 1660 was one of the magistrates and governor of Connecticut. His mother was a descendant of William Bradford, second governor of Plymouth colony. Noah entered Yale in 1774, but his studies were interrupted by the war of independence, and in his junior year he served in his father's company of militia. He was graduated in 1778, in the same class with Joel Barlow, Uriah Tracy, and Oliver Wolcott. He became a teacher, gave his leisure hours to the study of law, and in 1781 was admitted to the bar. But the state of the country was unfavorable to law business, and he resumed teaching at Goshen, New York. Here he began the compilation of text-books, and published “A Grammatical Institute of the English Language” (3 parts, Hartford, 1783-'5). This consisted of a spelling-book, a grammar, and a reading-book; and so successful was the speller that for twenty years while he was at work on his dictionary it supported him and his family, though his royalty was less than one cent on a copy. It is still in use, and 62,000,000 copies have been published. After the war the question of giving the soldiers pay for five years beyond their term of enlistment was discussed under great excitement, and in Connecticut a convention was held to protest against the passage of a bill for that purpose. Mr. Webster published a series of articles, under the signature of “Honorius,” favoring the bill, and they were said to have been the principal cause of a revulsion of popular feeling, as indicated in the next election. This turned his attention to governmental matters, and in 1784 he published a pamphlet entitled “Sketehes of American Policy,” in which he argued that a new system of government was necessary for the country, in which the people and congress should act without the constant intervention of the states. This is believed to have been the first movement toward a national constitution. In the spring of the next year Mr. Webster visited the southern states, to petition their legislatures for a copyright law, and at Mount Vernon gave Washington a copy of his pamphlet. In 1786 he delivered, in several cities, a course of lectures, which were published under the title “Dissertations on the English Language” (1789). In 1787 he was superintendent of an academy in Philadelphia, and after the adjournment of the Constitutional convention published a pamphlet on “The Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution.” In 1788 he established in New York the “American Magazine,” but it lived only twelve months, and the next year he settled in Hartford as a lawyer, and married a daughter of William Greenleaf, of Boston. His friend, John Trumbull, the poet, referring to the dullness of business, wrote: “I fear he will breakfast upon Institutes, dine upon Dissertations, and go to bed supperless.” Yet he enjoyed a profitable practice for four years, when he removed to New York and established a daily paper, the “Minerva” (subsequently changed to “Commercial Advertiser”), to support Washington's administration. In 1794 he published a pamphlet on “The Revolution in France,” which was widely circulated; and in 1795 he wrote ten of the twelve articles under the signature of “Curtius,” to sustain the Jay treaty, which were said by Rufus King to have done more than anything else to render that treaty acceptable to the people. A little later he wrote a history of pestilences, containing a large collection of facts and his own theories (2 vols., New York and London, 1799). He had removed to New Haven in 1798, and devoted himself to literature. In 1802 he produced a treatise on blockade and rights of neutrals, and also “The Origin and State of Banking Institutions and Insurance Offices.”

Mr. Webster had long been studying the origin and structure of his mother tongue, and in 1807 he published the first results of his special labors, under the title “A Philosophical and Practical Grammar of the English Language.” He objected to the ordinary English grammars, on the ground that they attempted to make the language conform to the Greek and Latin; but his book was never very successful. In the preceding year, 1806, he had published a vocabulary of words not contained in any existing lexicon, and he now began work upon his “American Dictionary of the English Language.” To collect new words, and make fuller and more exact definitions, was the special work to which he devoted many years, and he made a “synopsis of words in twenty languages,” which is still in manuscript. He also went to Europe in 1824 to consult literary men and examine works not to be found on this side of the Atlantic, and in the library of the University of Cambridge finished his dictionary, returning with the manuscript in June, 1825. In 1828 an edition of 2,500 copies was printed, followed by one of 3,000 in England. In 1840-'l he published an enlarged edition, in two volumes. The first edition had contained 12,000 words and 40,000 definitions that were not to be found in any similar work, and in each successive edition the number has been in creased. Just before his death he revised the appendix and added several hundred words. In that year also he published “A Collection of Papers on Political, Literary, and Moral Subjects,” which included a treatise “On the Supposed Change in the Temperature of Winter.”

In 1812, for more economical living, he had removed to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he was instrumental in founding Amherst college, and became the first president of its board of trustees. He was the centre of a small literary circle there, and his large library was always open to his neighbors. In 1822 he resumed his residence in New Haven, and the next year Yale gave him the degree of LL. D. He was for several years an alderman of New Haven, was a judge of one of the Connecticut courts, and sat in the legislatures of that state and Massachusetts. He is described as a genial man, of great frankness, who rendered all the affairs of his household perfectly systematic, and never was in debt. He read the Bible thoroughly, believed fully in its inspiration, had deep religious convictions, and during the last thirty-five years of his life was a member of an orthodox Congregational church. He was tall and slender, but perfectly erect. His wife survived him four years. They had one son and six daughters. Dr. Webster's life has been written by one of his daughters, as an introduction to his great dictionary, and by Horace E. Scudder, in the “Men of Letters” series (Boston, 1882).  Appleton’s Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 1888, Volume VI. pp. 417-418.

Biography from National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans:

THE name of NOAH WEBSTER is familiar to almost the entire population of our country, as associated with the period of their first instruction in the rudiments of knowledge. As an author he has acted an important part, in laying the foundation of American literature; and as a devoted friend to the institutions of his country, he has consecrated the best efforts of his genius, in some of the most trying exigencies of our government, to the promotion of domestic quiet and national security. In the following sketch, a brief outline will be given of the leading occurrences of his life; with particular reference to the occasions which called forth the principal productions of his pen.

Noah Webster was born in West Hartford, Connecticut, on the 16th of October, 1758. His father was a respectable farmer and justice of the peace; and was a descendant, in the fourth generation, of John Webster, one of the first settlers of Hartford, who was a magistrate, or member of the colonial council from its first formation, and, at a subsequent period, governor of Connecticut. His mother was a descendant of William Bradford, the second governor of the Plymouth colony.
Mr. Webster commenced the study of the classics, in the year 1772, under the instruction of the clergyman of the place, the Reverend Nathan Perkins, D. D., and in 1774, was admitted a member of Yale college. The war of the revolution commencing the next year, interrupted the regular attendance of the students on their usual exercises, arid deprived them of no small part of the advantages of a collegiate course of instruction. In his Junior year, when the western part of New England was thrown into confusion by General Burgoyne's expedition from Canada, Mr. Webster volunteered his services under the command of his father, who was captain in the alarm list, a body comprising those of the militia who were above forty-five years of age, and who were called into the field only on pressing emergencies. In that campaign, all the males of the family, four in number, were in the army at the same time.

Notwithstanding the interruption of his studies by these causes, Mr. Webster graduated with reputation in 1778. This was an unpropitious time for a young man to be cast upon the world without property. The country was impoverished by the war to a degree of which it is difficult, at the present day, to form any just conception; there was no prospect of peace; the issue of the contest was felt by the most sanguine to be extremely doubtful; and the practice of the law, which Mr. Webster intended to pursue, was in a great measure set aside by the general calamity. It was under these circumstances, that his father, on his return from the Commencement when he graduated, gave him an eight-dollar bill of the continental currency, (then worth about a dollar in silver,) and told him that he must thenceforth rely on his own exertions for support. As a means of immediate subsistence, he resorted to the instruction of a school, and during the summer of 1779, resided at Hartford, Connecticut, in the family of Mr., afterwards Chief Justice, Ellsworth. An intimate friendship was thus formed between these two gentlemen, which was interrupted only by the death of the Chief Justice.

Not having the means of obtaining a regular education for the bar, Mr. Webster, at the suggestion of a distinguished counsellor of his acquaintance, determined to pursue the study of the law in the intervals of his regular employment, without the aid of an instructor; and having presented himself for examination, at the expiration of two years, was admitted to practice in the year 1781. As he had no encouragement to open an office in the existing state of the country, he resumed the business of instruction, and taught a classical school, in 1782, at Goshen, in Orange county, New York. Here, in a desponding state of mind, created by the unsettled condition of things at the close. of the war, and the gloomy prospects f01 business, he undertook an employment which gave a complexion to his whole future life. This was the compilation of books for the instruction of youth in schools. Having prepared the first draft of an elementary treatise of this kind, he made a journey to Philadelphia in the autumn of the same year; and after exhibiting a specimen of the work to several members of Congress, among whom was Mr. Madison, and to the Reverend S. S. Smith, D. D., at that time a professor, and afterwards president, of the college at Princeton, he was encouraged by their approbation to prosecute his design. Accordingly, in the winter following, he revised what he had written, and leaving Goshen, in 1783, he returned to Hartford, where he published his "First Part of a Grammatical Institute of the English Language." The second and third parts were published in the years immediately following. These works, comprising a spelling book, an English grammar, and a compilation for reading, were the first books of the kind published in the United States. They were gradually introduced into most of the schools of our country; and to so great an extent has the spelling book been used, that during the twenty years in which he was employed in compiling his American Dictionary, the entire support of his family was derived from the profits of this work, at a premium for copy-right, of less. than a cent a copy. Between thirteen and fourteen millions of this book have been published, in the different forms which it assumed under the revision of its author; and its popularity has gone on increasing to the present time. To its influence, probably, more than to any other cause, are we indebted for that remarkable uniformity of pronunciation in our country, which is so often spoken of with surprise by English travellers.

In entering thus early on his literary career, Mr. Webster did not confine himself to the publication of his own works. At a period when nothing had as yet been done to perpetuate the memorials of our early history, he led the way in this important branch of literary effort, by the publication of that highly valuable and characteristic work, Governor Winthrop's Journal. Having learnt that a manuscript copy was in the possession of Governor Trumbull, he caused it to be transcribed, at his own expense, by the governor's private secretary; and risked more than the amount of his whole property in its publication. The sale never remunerated him for the expenses thus incurred.

At the period of Mr. Webster's return to Hartford, in 1783, the state was agitated by violent dissentions, on the subject of a grant made by congress to the army, of half pay for life, which was afterwards commuted for a grant of full pay for five years beyond their term of service. To this grant it was strongly objected, that if the army had suffered by the reduced value of the bills in which they were paid, the country at large had sustained an equal loss by the depreciation of the currency, and by other causes. So strong was the excitement on this subject, that public meetings were held throughout the state, to prevent the laws of congress from being carried into effect, and at length a convention met at Middletown with the same design, at which two thirds of the towns in Connecticut were represented. In this state of things, Mr. Webster, though only twenty-five years of age, came forward to vindicate the measures of congress; and wrote a series of papers on the subject under the signature of Honorius, which were published in the Connecticut Courant, and read extensively throughout the state. The effect was great. At the next election, in April, 1784, a large majority of the legislature were supporters of congress in their measures. So highly were Mr. Webster's services appreciated on this occasion, that he received the thanks of Governor Trumbull in person, and was publicly declared by a member of the council, to have ''done more to allay popular discontent, and support the authority of congress at this crisis, than any other man."

These occurrences in his native state, together with the distress and stagnation of business in the whole country, resulting from the want of power in congress to carry its measures into effect, and to secure to the people the benefits of a stable government, convinced Mr. Webster, that the old confederation, after the dangers of the war were past, was utterly inadequate to the necessities of the people. He therefore published a pamphlet in the winter of 1784-5, entitled "Sketches of American Policy," in which, after treating of the general principles of government, he endeavored to prove, that it was absolutely necessary for the welfare and safety of the United States, to establish a new system of government, which should act not on the states, but directly on individuals, and vest in congress full power to carry its laws into effect. Being on a journey to the southern states, in May, 1785, he went to Mount Vernon, and presented a copy of this pamphlet to General Washington. It contained, the writer believes, the first distinct proposal made through the medium of the press, for a new constitution of the United States.

One object of Mr. Webster's journey to the south was, to petition the state legislatures for the enactment of a law, securing to authors an exclusive right to the publication of their writings. In this he succeeded to a considerable extent; and the public attention was thus called to a provision for the support of American literature, which was rendered more effectual by a general copy-right law, enacted by congress soon after the formation of our government. At a much later period (in the years 1830-31,) Mr. Webster passed a winter at Washington, with the single view of endeavoring to procure an alteration of the existing law, which should extend the term of copy-right, and thus give a more ample reward to the labors of our artists and literary men. In this design he succeeded; and an act was. passed more liberal in its provisions than the former law, though less so, than the laws of some European governments on this subject.

On his return from the south, Mr. Webster spent the summer of 1785, at Baltimore, and employed his time in preparing a course of lectures on the English language, which were delivered during the year 1786, in the principal Atlantic cities, and were published in 1789, in an octavo volume, with the title of “Dissertations on the English Language."

The year 1787 was spent by Mr. Webster at Philadelphia, as superintendent of an Episcopal academy. The convention which framed the present constitution of the United States, were in session at Philadelphia during a part of this year and when their labors were closed, Mr. Webster was solicited by Mr. Fitzsimmons, one of the members, to give the aid of his pen in recommending the new system of government to the people. lie accordingly wrote a pamphlet on this subject, entitled an "Examination of the leading principles of the Federal Constitution."

In 1788, Mr. Webster attempted to establish a periodical in New York, and for one year published the American Magazine, which, however, failed of success; as did also an attempt to combine the efforts of other gentlemen in a similar undertaking. The country was not yet prepared for such a work.

In 1789, when the prospects of business became more encouraging, after the adoption of the new constitution, Mr. Webster married a daughter of William Greenleaf, Esq., of Boston, and established himself.at Hartford in the practice of the law, which he pursued for some years with increasing success.

This employment he was induced to relinquish, in 1793, by an interesting crisis in public affairs. General Washington's celebrated proclamation of neutrality, rendered. necessary by the efforts of the French minister, Genet, to raise troops in our country for the invasion of Louisiana, and to fit out privateers against nations at peace with the United States, had called forth the most bitter reproaches of the partisans of France; and. it was even doubtful, for a time, whether, the unbounded popularity of the FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY, could repress the public effervescence in favor of embarking in the wars of the French revolution; In this state of things, Mr. Webster was strongly solicited to give the support of his pen to the measures of the administration, by establishing a daily paper in the city of New York. Though conscious of the sacrifice of personal ease which he was called upon to make, he was so strongly impressed with the dangers of the crisis, and so entirely devoted to the principles of Washington, that he did not hesitate to accede to the proposal. Removing his family to New York in November, 1793, he commenced a daily paper under the title of the Minerva, and afterwards a semi-weekly paper, with that of the Herald, names which were subsequently changed to those of the Commercial Advertiser, and New York Spectator. This was the first example of a paper for the country, composed of the columns of a daily paper, without recomposition, a practice which has now become very common. In addition to his labors as sole editor of these papers, Mr. WEBSTER published, in the year 1794, a pamphlet. which had a very extensive circulation, entitled " The Revolution in France."

The publication of the treaty negotiated with Great Britain by Mr. Jay, in 1795, aroused an opposition to its ratification of so violent a nature as to stagger for a time the firmness of Washington, and to threaten civil commotions. Mr. Webster in common with General Hamilton, and some of the ablest men of the country, came out in vindication of the treaty. Under the signature of Curtius, he published a series of papers which were very extensively reprinted throughout the country, and afterwards collected by a bookseller of Philadelphia, in a pamphlet form. Of these, ten were contributed by himself, and two by Mr., afterwards Chancellor, Kent. As an evidence of their effect, it may not be improper to state, that Mr. Rufus King expressed his opinion to Mr. Jay, that the essays of Curtius had contributed more than any other papers of the same kind, to-allay the discontent and opposition to the treaty; assigning as a reason, that they were peculiarly well adapted to the understanding of the people at large.

During the residence of Mr. Webster in New York, the yellow fever prevailed at different times in most of our large Atlantic cities; and a controversy arose among the physicians of Philadelphia and New York, on the question whether it was introduced by infection, or generated on the spot. The subject interested Mr. Webster deeply, and led him into a laborious investigation of the history of pestilential diseases at every period of the world. The facts which he collected, with the inferences to which he was led, were embodied in a work of two volumes, octavo, which, in 1799, was published both in this country, and in England. This work has always been considered as a valuable repository of facts; and since the prevalence of the cholera, the theories of the author seem to have received so much confirmation, as to excite a more than ordinary interest in the work, both in Europe and America. It is understood, that a gentleman from Hamburgh is employed in translating it into the German language.

During the wars which were excited by the French revolution, the power assumed by the belligerents to blockade their enemies' ports by proclamation, and the multiplied seizures of American vessels bound to such ports, produced various discussions respecting the rights of neutral nations in time of war. These discussions induced Mr. Webster to examine the subject historically; and in 1802, he published a treatise full of minute information and able reasoning on the subject. A gentleman of competent abilities, who said he had read all that he could find on that subject, in the English, French, German, and Italian languages, declared that he considered this treatise as the best he had seen. The same year he also published "Historical Notices of the origin and state of Banking Institutions, and Insurance Offices” which was republished in Philadelphia by one Humphrey, without giving credit to the author; and a part of which, taken from this reprint, was incorporated into the Philadelphia edition of Rees' Cyclopaedia. 

At this time Mr. Webster resided at New Haven, to which place he removed in the spring of 1798. For a short period after his departure from New York, he wrote for the papers mentioned above, which, although placed under the care of another editor, continued for a time to be his property. He very soon succeeded, however, in disposing of his interest in them; and from that time devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits.

In 1807, he entered on the great work of his life, which he had contemplated for many years, that of compiling a. new and complete dictionary of the English language. As preliminary to this, he had published, in 1806, a dictionary in the octavo form, containing a large number of words not to be found in many similar work, with the definitions corrected throughout, though necessarily expressed in very brief terms.  From this time, his reading was turned more or less directly to this object. A number of years were spent in collecting words which had not been introduced into the English dictionaries; in discriminating with exactness the various senses of all the words in our' language, and adding those significate ones which they had recently received. Some estimate may be formed of the labor bestowed on this part of the work, from the fact, that " The American Dictionary of the English Language" contains twelve thousand words, and between thirty and forty thousand definitions, which are not to be found in any preceding work. Seventy years had elapsed since the publication of Johnson's Dictionary; and scarcely a single improvement had been attempted in the various editions through which it had passed, or the numerous compilations to which it had given rise, except by the addition of a few words to the vocabulary. Yet in this period, the English mind was putting itself forth in every direction, with an accuracy of research, and a fertility of invention which are without a parallel in any other stage of its history. A complete revolution had taken place in almost every branch of physical science; new departments had been created, new principles developed, new modes of classification and description adopted. The political changes which. so signally marked that period; the excitement of feeling and conflict of opinion resulting from the American and French revolutions; and the numerous modifications which followed in the institutions of society, had also left a deep impress on the language of politics, law, and general literature. Under these circumstances, to make a defining dictionary adapted to the present state of our language, was to produce an entirely new work; and how well Mr. Webster executed the task, will appear from the decision of men best qualified to judge, both in this country and in Europe, who have declared that his improvements upon Johnson are even greater than Johnson himself made on those who preceded him. Still more labor, however, was bestowed on another part of the work, viz., the etymology of our leading terms. In this subject, Mr. Webster had always felt a lively interest, as presenting on of the most curious exhibitions of the progress of the human mind. But it was not till he had advanced considerably in the work as originally commenced, that he found how indispensable a knowledge of the true derivation of words is, to an exact development of their various meanings. At this point, therefore, he suspended his labors on the defining part of the dictionary, and devoted a number of years to an inquiry into the origin of our language, and its connexion with those of other countries. In the course of these researches, he examined the vocabularies of twenty of the principal languages of' the world, and made a synopsis of the most important words in each; arranging them under the same radical letters, with a translation of their significations, and references from one to another; when the senses are the same or similar. He was thus enabled to discover the real or probable affinities between the different languages; and in many instances, to discover the primary, physical idea of an original word, from which the secondary senses have branched forth. Being thus furnished with a clue to guide him among the numerous, and often apparently inconsistent' significations of our most important words; he resumed his labors on the defining part of the dictionary, and was able to give order and consistency to much that had before appeared confused and contradictory. The results of his inquiries into the origin and filiation of languages, were embodied in a work about half the size of the American dictionary, entitled "A Synopsis of Words in Twenty Languages." This, owing to the expense of the undertaking, has not yet been published; though its principal results so far as our language is concerned, are briefly given in tracing the etymology of our leading terms.

During the progress of these labors, Mr. Webster, finding his resources inadequate to the support of his family at New Haven, removed, in 1812 to Amherst, a pleasant country town within eight miles of Northampton, Massachusetts. Here he entered, with his characteristic-ardor, into the literary and social interests of the people among whom he was placed. His extensive library, which was open to all, and his elevated tone of thought and conversation, had naturally a powerful influence on the habits and feelings of a small and secluded population. It was owing in part, probably, to his removal to this town, that an academy was there established, which is now among the most flourishing seminaries of our land. A question having soon after arisen, respecting the removal of Williams college from a remote corner of the state, to some more central position, Mr. Webster entered warmly into the design of procuring its establishment at Amherst, as one of the most beautiful and appropriate locations in New England. Though the removal did not take place, so strong an interest on the subject was awakened in Amherst and the neighboring towns, that a new college was soon after founded there, in the establishment of which Mr. Webster, as president of its first board of trustees, had great influence, both by his direct exertions to secure it patronage, and by the impulse which he had given to the cause of education in that part of the state. This institution now stands third in numbers among the colleges of our country. 

In 1822, Mr. Webster returned with his family to New Haven; and in 1823, received the degree of LL. D., from. Yale college. Having nearly completed his dictionary, he resolved on a voyage to Europe, with a view to perfect the work by consulting literary men abroad, and by examining some standard authors, to which he could not gain access in this country. He accordingly sailed for France in June, 1824, and spent two months at Paris in consulting several rare works in the Bibliotheque du Roi, and then went to England, where he remained till May, 1825. He spent several months at the 'University of Cambridge, where he had free access to the public libraries, and there he finished " the American Dictionary " He afterwards visited London, Oxford, and some of the other principal towns of England, and in June, returned to this country. This visit to England gave him an opportunity to become acquainted with literary men and literary institutions in that country, and to learn the real state of the English language there.

Soon after Dr. Webster returned to this country, the necessary arrangements were made for the publication of 'the work. An edition of twenty-five hundred copies was printed in this country, at the close of 1828, which was followed by an edition of three thousand in England, under the superintendence of E. H. Barker Esq., editor of the Thesaurus Graecae Linguae of Henry Stephens. With the publication of the AMERICAN DICTIONARY, at the age of seventy, Dr. Webster considered the labors of his literary life as brought to a close. He has since revised a few of his earlier works for publication; and spent a number, of months in superintending a new edition of the Bible, in which some phraseology of the common version, which is offensive to delicacy, is altered; and some antiquated terms and forms of expression are changed, in accordance with present usage. His revisions have met with the approbation of many persons who have examined the work; and if there is any name in our country which will give currency to such an amendment of the common version, it is that of the author of the AMERICAN DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

Source: Longacre, James B. & James Herring, National Portrait Gallery of Distinguished Americans.  Philadelphia: American Academy of Fine Arts, 1834-1839


WEBSTER, Reverend Samuel, Salisbury, Massachusetts, promoted immediate emancipation of slaves.

(Locke, Mary Stoughton. Anti-Slavery in America from the Introduction of African Slaves to the Prohibition of the Slave Trade (1619-1808). Boston: Ginn & Co., 1901, pp. 40, 50)



Sources:
Dictionary of American Biography, Volumes I-X, Edited by Dumas Malone, New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1930.

Appletons’ Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Volumes I-VI, Edited by James Grant Wilson & John Fiske, New York: D. Appleton and Co., 1888-1889.