Famous American Statesmen by Sarah Bolton

Author:Sarah Bolton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pronoun

Here Mr. Webster broke down, overcome by the recollections of those early days of poverty, and the self-sacrifice of the dead father. The eyes of Chief Justice Marshall were suffused with tears, as were those of nearly all present. When Mr. Webster sat down, for some moments the silence was death-like, and then the people roused themselves as though awaking from a dream. Nearly seventy years after this, when the Hon. Mellen Chamberlain, Librarian of the Boston Public Library, gave his eloquent address at the dedication of Wilson Hall, the library building of Dartmouth College, he held in his hand the very copy of Blackstone from which Webster quoted in his great argument, with his autograph on the fly-leaf. Of Webster he said, “His imagination transformed the soulless body corporate—the fiction of the king’s prerogative—into a living personality, the object of his filial devotion, the beloved mother whose protection called forth all his powers, and enkindled in his bosom a quenchless love.”

Several years later, Webster won the great case of Gibbons vs. Ogden, which settled that the State of New York had no right, under the Constitution, to grant a monopoly of steam navigation, on its waters, to Fulton and Livingston.

He now took an active part in the revision of the Constitution of Massachusetts, helping to do away with the religious test, that a person holding office must declare his belief in the Christian religion. A believer himself, he was unwilling to force his views upon others. December 22, 1820, he delivered an oration at Plymouth, commemorating the two-hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims. It was a grand theme, and the theme had a master to handle it. He began simply, “Let us rejoice that we behold this day. Let us be thankful that we have lived to see the bright and happy breaking of the auspicious morn which commences the third century of the history of New England.... Forever honored be this, the place of our fathers’ refuge! Forever remembered the day which saw them, weary and distressed, broken in everything but spirit, poor in all but faith and courage, at last secure from the danger of wintry seas, and impressing this shore with the first footsteps of civilized man!”

Then the picture was sketched on a glowing canvas;—the noble Pilgrims; the progress of New England during the century; the grand government under which we live and develop, with the Christian religion for our comfort and our hope. In closing he said, “The hours of this day are rapidly flying, and this occasion will soon be passed. Neither we nor our children can expect to behold its return. They are in the distant regions of futurity, they exist only in the all-creating power of God, who shall stand here, a hundred years hence, to trace through us their descent from the Pilgrims, and to survey, as we have now surveyed, the progress of their country during the lapse of a century. We would anticipate their concurrence with us in our sentiments of deep regard for our common ancestors.

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