Mrs. Eddy Mentioned Them October 11, 1958 Issue

Daniel Webster, 1782-1852

[Mentioned in Miscellaneous Writings, p. 345, and People's Idea of God, p. 13]

Daniel Webster, lawyer, orator, and statesman, was a native of New Hampshire. After graduating from Dartmouth College, he studied law, completing his work and being admitted to the bar in Massachusetts. He returned to New Hampshire to practice first in Salisbury, his birthplace, and then in Portsmouth. Here he became acquainted with men of wide commercial interests. Here too politics engaged his attention; he advocated a larger Navy and opposed the War of 1812. Twice he was elected to the national House of Representatives. In 1814 he told Congress that his state would not obey conscription laws, and in 1816 he opposed a protective tariff. He was later to reverse both positions.

Professional activity brought Webster to Boston, and this terminated his congressional service for New Hampshire. In the Dartmouth College case, which he finally argued before the Supreme Court in Washington, D. C., it was established that no state had the constitutional right to interfere in the affairs of an institution like Dartmouth. Webster's eloquence was such that Chief Justice Marshall bent forward "as if to catch the slightest whisper." At Plymouth, Webster commemorated the two hundredth anniversary of the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers. Adams, who had heard Burke and Pitt, wrote, "This oration will be read five hundred years hence with as much rapture as it was heard."

Massachusetts returned Webster to Washington, first to the Lower House and then to the Senate. Recognizing the importance of manufacturing, he voted for a high protective tariff. In 1830 he made his famous "Reply to Hayne," defending the Union and the Constitution and ending with the rousing words, "Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"

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