DANIEL WEBSTER (1782-1852) It is only now and then that the work of an orator can be classed as literature in the strict sense of the word. Webster alone of all the orators of his age, an age peculiarly rich in oratory, has been given an undisputed place among the men of letters. The orations of such magnetic speakers as Henry Clay perished all too often with the occasion that brought them forth. An oration is so vitally connected with the physical presence of the orator and of his hearers and with the occasion which all understand and which makes the air electric, that only seldom can it exist apart from these accompaniments. Its essence is usually too volatile for storage and transportation. The work of Webster, however, is an exception; it has in it a vitality that makes it alive apart from the occasion that brought it forth, and that places it beside the best efforts of such masters as Demosthenes and Cicero and Burke. Webster's life centered almost entirely in his professions of law and statesmanship. Only incidentally was he a man of letters. A native of New Hampshire and a graduate of Dartmouth College, he turned early to the law and before he had reached middle life had reached the top of his profession. He was elected to Congress in 1812 and to the Senate in 1827. He served twice as Secretary of State, first under Harrison and then under Fillmore, and twice he came near to being nominated as President of the United States. Webster's first notable oration was delivered in 1820 at the second centennial celebration of the landing of the Pilgrims. This effort and the oration on the occasion of the laying the corner stone of the Bunker Hill Monument in 1825 made him the most widely-known orator of his generation and in many ways the greatest. His reply to Hayne in 1830 marks the culminating point of his career. The oratory of Webster was of the eighteenth century type. He belonged to the classical age with its reverence for form, for ornate diction, and artificial sentence structure. He began always his orations with an elaborate exordium and closed with a tremendous peroration. His style with its sonorous cadences, its elevated imagery, its stately epithets, its solemn apostrophes to the dead and to future generations, its elaborate antitheses and balances, is Johnsonian. He does not look out to sea: he casts his eyes abroad over the ocean,' and sees, not a ship, but 'a little bark.' He alludes to the ships drawn up in the harbor below as, Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately lying at the foot of this mount and seeming fondly to cling around it.' Sometimes the style approaches the bounds of bombast, but it never topples over. There is something Miltonic about the sonorous periods. The passion and fire that swayed the first hearers are still in the lines. The roll of the sentences, the majestic music of the resonant diction, the elevation everywhere of the thought,— never once descending to the commonplace, combine to make it a masterpiece of its kind. The orations are best read aloud. They were created for the ear rather than for the eye. Only with the voice can one bring out to the full the Miltonic organ roll that is their chief distinction. THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT AT CHARLESTOWN, MASSACHUSETTS, ON THE 17TH OF JUNE, 1825. This uncounted multitude before me and around me proves the feeling which the occasion has excited. These thousands of human faces, glowing with sympathy and joy, and from the impulses of a common gratitude turned reverently to heaven in this spacious temple of the firmament, proclaim that the day, the place, and the pur 5 10 ΙΟ pose of our assembling have made a deep impression on our hearts. If, indeed, there be anything in local association fit to affect the mind of man, we need not strive to repress the emotions which agitate us here. We are among the sepulchers of our fathers. We are on ground distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been 5 born, the 17th of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand a point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here to enjoy and suffer the allotments of humanity. 1o We see before us a probable train of great events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of occurrences which have 15 guided our destiny before many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men on earth. never be without interest. We shall not stand unmoved on the shore of Plymouth, while the sea continues to wash it; nor will our brethren in another early and ancient Colony forget the place of its first establishment, till their river shall cease to flow by it. No vigor of youth, no maturity of manhood, will lead the nation to forget the spots where its infancy was cradled and defended. But the great event in the history of the continent, which we are now met here to commemorate, that prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world, is the American Revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our love of coun20 try, by our admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion. We do not read even of the discovery of this continent, without feeling something of a personal interest in the event; without being reminded how much it has affected our own fortunes and our own ex- 25 istence. It would be still more unnatural for us, therefore, than for others, to contemplate with unaffected minds that interesting, I may say that most touching and pathetic scene, when the great discoverer 30 of America stood on the deck of his shattered bark, the shades of night falling on the sea, yet no man sleeping; tossed on the billows of an unknown ocean, yet the stronger billows of alternate hope and de- 35 spair tossing his own troubled thoughts; extending forward his harassed frame, straining westward his anxious and eager eyes, till Heaven at last granted him a moment of rapture and ecstasy, in blessing 40 his vision with the sight of the unknown world. Own We Nearer to our times, mose closely connected with our fates, and therefore, still more interesting to our feelings and af- 45 fections, is the settlement of our country by colonists from England. cherish every memorial of these worthy ancestors; we celebrate their patience and fortitude; we admire their daring enter- 50 prise; we teach our children to venerate their piety; and we are justly proud of being descended from men who have set the world an example of founding civil institutions on the great and united prin- 55 ciples of human freedom and human knowledge To us, their children, the story of their labors and sufferings can The Society whose organ I am was formed for the purpose of rearing some honorable and durable monument to the memory of the early friends of American Independence. They have thought that for this object no time could be more propitious than the present prosperous and peaceful period; that no place could claim preference over this memorable spot; and that no day could be more auspicious to the undertaking, than the anniversary of the battle which was here fought. The foundation of that monument we have now laid. With solemnities suited to the occasion, with prayers to Almighty God for his blessing, and in the midst of this cloud of witnesses, we have begun the work. We trust it will be prosecuted, and that, springing from a broad foundation, rising high in massive solidity and unadorned grandeur, it may remain as long as Heaven permits the works of man to last, a fit emblem, both of the events in memory of which it is raised, and of the gratitude of those who have reared it. We know, indeed, that the record of illustrious actions is most safely deposited in the universal remembrance of mankind. We know, that if we could cause this structure to ascend, not only till it reached the skies, but till it pierced them, its broad surfaces could still contain but part of that which, in an age of knowledge, hath already been spread over the earth, and which history charges itself with making known to all future times. We know that 5 pious feeling of dependence and gratitude. We wish, finally, that the last object to the sight of him who leaves his native shore, and the first to gladden him who revisits it, may be something which shall remind him of the liberty and the glory of his country. Let it rise! let it rise, till it meet the sun in his coming; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit. We live in a most extraordinary age. Events so various and so important that they might crowd and distinguish centuries 15 are, in our times, compressed within the compass of a single life. When has it happened that history has had so much to record, in the same term of years, as since the 17th of June, 1775? Our own revolution, which, under other circumstances, might itself have been expected to occasion a war of half a century, has been achieved; twenty-four sovereign and independent States erected; and a general government established over them, so safe, so wise, so free, so practical, that we might well wonder its establishment should have been accomplished so soon, were it not far the greater wonder that it should have been established at all. Two or three millions of people have been augmented to twelve, the great forests of the West prostrated beneath the arm of successful industry, and the dwellers on the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi become the fellow-citizens and neighbors of those who cultivate the hills of New England. We have a commerce that leaves no sea unexplored; navies which take no law from superior force; revenues adequate to all the exigencies of government, almost without taxation; and peace with all nations, founded on equal rights and mutual respect. no inscription on entablatures less broad Europe, within the same period, has been agitated by a mighty revolution, which, while it has been felt in the individual condition and happiness of almost every man, has shaken to the center her political fabric, and dashed against one another thrones which had stood tranquil for ages. On this, our continent, our own example has been followed, and colonies have sprung up to be nations. Unaccustomed sounds of liberty and free government have reached us from beyond the track of the sun; and at this moment the dominion of European power in this con Yet, notwithstanding that this is but a 10 faint abstract of the things which have happened since the day of the battle of Bunker Hill, we are but fifty years removed from it; and we now stand here to enjoy all the blessings of our own condi- 15 tion, and to look abroad on the brightened prospects of the world, while we still have among us some of those who were active agents in the scenes of 1775, and who are now here, from every quarter of New 20 England, to visit once more, and under circumstances so affecting, I had almost said so overwhelming, this renowned theater of their courage and patriotism. VENERABLE MEN! you have come down 25 to us from a former generation. Heaven has bounteously lengthened out your lives, that you might behold this joyous day. You are now where you stood fifty years ago, this very hour, with your brothers 30 and your neighbors, shoulder to shoulder, in the strife for your country. Behold, how altered! The same heavens are indeed over your heads; the same ocean rolls at your feet; but all else how 35 changed! You hear now no roar of hostile cannon, you see no mixed volumes of smoke and flame rising from burning Charlestown. The ground strewed with the dead and the dying; the impetuous charge; the steady and successful repulse; the loud call to repeated assault; the summoning of all that is manly to repeated resistance; a thousand bosoms freely and fearlessly bared in an instant to what- 45 ever of terror there may be in war and death; all these you have witnessed, but you witness them no more. All is peace. The heights of yonder metropolis, its towers and roofs, which you then saw filled 50 with wives and children and countrymen in distress and terror, and looking with unutterable emotions for the issue of the combat, have presented you to-day with the sight of its whole happy population. 55 come out to welcome and greet you with a universal jubilee. Yonder proud ships, by a felicity of position appropriately ly ing at the foot of this mount, and seeming fondly to cling around it, are not means of annoyance to you, but your country's Own means of distinction and defense. All is peace; and God has granted you this sight of your country's happiness, ere you slumber in the grave. He has allowed you to behold and to partake the reward of your patriotic toils; and he has allowed us, your sons and countrymen, to meet you here, and in the name of the present generation, in the name of your country, in the name of liberty, to thank you! But, alas! you are not all here! Time and the sword have thinned your ranks. Prescott, Putnam, Stark, Brooks, Read, Pomeroy, Bridge! our eyes seek for you in vain amid this broken band. You are gathered to your fathers, and live only to your country in her grateful remembrance and your own bright example. But let us not too much grieve, that you have met the common fate of men. You lived at least long enough to know that your work had been nobly and successfully accomplished. You lived to see your country's independence established, and to sheathe your swords from war. On the light of Liberty you saw arise the light of Peace, like another morn, Risen on mid-noon; and the sky on which you closed your eyes was cloudless. But, ah! Him! the first great martyr in this great cause! Him! the premature victim of his own self-devoting heart! Him! the head of our civil councils, and the destined leader of our military bands, whom nothing brought hither but the unquenchable fire of his own spirit! Him! cut off by Providence in the hour of overwhelming anxiety and thick gloom; falling ere he saw the star of his country rise; pouring out his generous blood like water, before he knew whether it would fertilize a land of freedom or of bondage! — how shall I struggle with the emotions that stifle the utterance of thy name! Our poor work may perish; but thine shall endure! This monument may molder away; the solid ground it rests upon may sink down to a level with the sea; but thy memory shall not fail! Wheresoever among men a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of patriotism and VETERANS! you are the remnant of many a well-fought field. You bring with you marks of honor from Trenton and Monmouth, from Yorktown, Camden, Bennington, and Saratoga. VETERANS OF 15 HALF A CENTURY! when in your youthful days you put every thing at hazard in your country's cause, good as that cause was, and sanguine as youth is, still your fondest hopes did not stretch onward to 20 an hour like this! At a period to which you cannot reasonably have expected to arrive, at a moment of national prosperity such as you could never have foreseen, you are now met here to enjoy the fel- 25 lowship of old soldiers, and to receive the overflowings of a universal gratitude. But your agitated countenances and your heaving breasts inform me that even this is not an unmixed joy. I perceive 30 that a tumult of contending feelings rushes upon you. The images of the dead, as well as the persons of the living, present themselves before you. The scene overwhelms you, and I turn from it. May the 35 Father of all mercies smile upon your declining years, and bless them! And when you shall here have exchanged your embraces, when you shall once more have pressed the hands which have been so 40 often extended to give succor in adversity, or grasped in the exultation of victory, then look abroad upon this lovely land which your young valor defended, and mark the happiness with which it is filled; 45 yea, look abroad upon the whole earth, and see what a name you have contributed to give to your country, and what a praise you have added to freedom, and then rejoice in the sympathy and gratitude which 50 beam upon your last days from the improved condition of mankind! The occasion does not require of me any particular account of the battle of the 17th of June, 1775, nor any detailed narrative 55 of the events which immediately preceded it. These are familiarly known to all. In the progress of the great and interest ing controversy, Massachusetts and the town of Boston had become early and marked objects of the displeasure of the British Parliament. This had been manifested in the act for altering the government of the Province, and in that for shutting up the port of Boston. Nothing sheds more honor on our early history, and nothing better shows how little the feelings and sentiments of the Colonies were known or regarded in England, than the impression which these measures everywhere produced in America. It had been anticipated, that while the Colonies in general would be terrified by the severity of the punishment inflicted on Massachusetts, the other seaports would be governed by a mere spirit of gain; and that, as Boston was now cut off from all commerce, the unexpected advantage which this blow on her was calculated to confer on other towns would be greedily enjoyed. How miserably such reasoners deceived themselves! How little they knew of the depth, and the strength, and the intenseness of that feeling of resistance to illegal acts of power, which possessed the whole American people! Everywhere the unworthy boon was rejected with scorn. The fortunate occasion was seized, everywhere, to show to the whole world that the Colonies were swayed by no local interest, no partial interest, no selfish interest. The temptation to profit by the punishment of Boston was strongest to our neighbors of Salem. Yet Salem was precisely the place where this miserable proffer was spurned, in a tone of the most lofty self-respect and the most indignant patriotism. We are deeply affected,' said its inhabitants, with the sense of our public calamities; but the miseries that are now rapidly hastening on our brethren in the capital of the Province greatly excite our commiseration. By shutting up the port of Boston some imagine that the course of trade might be turned hither and to our benefit; but we must be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, could we indulge a thought to seize on wealth and raise our fortunes on the ruin of our suffering neighbors.' These noble sentiments were not confined to our immediate vicinity. In that day of general affection and brotherhood, the blow given to Boston smote on every patriotic heart from one end of the country to the other. Virginia and the Caro |