Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/364

 WEBSTER

"WEBSTER

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the command of a brigade at Harper's Ferry, during Generals Sigels and Hunter's campaigns in the Shenandoah valley. He resigned his com- mission. May 13, 1865. was U.S. consul at Nantes, France, and later assessor of internal revenue in New York. ls70-7'2. and collector, 1872-83. He died in Hrooklyn. N.Y., June 15, 1901.

WEBSTER, Daniel, statesman and orator, was born in Salisbury. N.H.. Jan. 18, 1782 ; son of Capt. Ebenezer and Abigail (Eastman) Webster. The Websters were of Scotch extraction, immi- grants to America about 1638. His father, the owner of a heavily mortgaged mountain farm which he had rescued from the wil- derness and on which lie hail erected a mill, was a man of influ- ence, had served in the French and In- dian wars and when the Revolution was ushered in by the battle of Lexington raised a company of his neiglibors and commanded them tiiroughout the war for independence. After 1791 he served as as- sociate judge of the Hillsborough county court of common pleas. He was a firm Federalist and opposed the French revolution and the Democ- racy of Jefferson. Daniel's mother, Abigail E^tman, was a strong woman mentally and physically, of "Welsli extraction. Daniel, with his brother Ezekiel, two years his senior, at- tended tlie district school, worked upon the farm and tended the saw-mill. In 1794 he entered Exeter academy, having at the time already read Hudibras, the Spectator and Pope's Homer, and committed the "Essay on Man" and much of the Bible to memory. He was prepared for college by the Rev. Samuel "Wood and nine months at Phillips Andover academy, and in August, 1797, matriculated at Dartmouth. "While in college he delivered two or three occasional addresses which were published, and on the Fourth of July, 1800, he delivered to the citizens of Hanover his first public oration, in which oc- curred the passages : " Columbia stoops not to tyrants. Her spirit will never cringe to France. Neither a supercilious five-headed directory nor a gasconading pilgrim of Egypt will ever dictate terms of sovereignty to America." Before leav- ing Dartmouth he induced his father to send Ezekiel to college an<l trust to the advantages gained there for future financial help from his two boys. Daniel was graduated from Dart-

mouth in August, 1801. and that winter engaged in teaching school at Fryeburg, JIaine, and with the money thus earned paid his brother's tuition at Dartmoutii, enabling him to graduate in 1804. The same year Daniel received his master's degree in course and an honorary A.M. degree from Harvard. He became a law student in the office of Christopher Gore of Boston, and while so engaged was offered the clerkship of the Hills- borough county court, in which his father was an associate judge, with a salary which would place his father's family beyond the financial straits then experienced. "With filial duty foremost in his mind Daniel went to his preceptor in law for his advice. Mr. Gore told him not to accept it as " he was not made to be a clerk," and after con- veying to his father the disappointing news of his determination to continue his law studies he returned to Boston and was admitted to the bar in March, 1805, beginning practice at Boscawen, near Salisbuiy, N.H. In April, 1806, occurred the death of his father, whose debts Daniel an- nounced his determination to assume. In 1807 he left his law practice at Boscawen to his brother and "hung out his shingle " in Ports- mouth, the principal town of the state and the centre of its law practice. He was married May 29, or June 24, 1808, to Grace Fletcher of Salis- bury. In 1812 he made a Fourth of July oration before the "Washington Benevolent Society, in which he advocated a larger navj-. In August he was sent as a delegate to the Rockingham county assembly and he was the author of the "Rockingham Memorial" opposing the war. The favor with which the memorial was received in New Hampshire secured his election as repre- sentative in the 13th congress in 1812. where he took his seat May 24, 1813, and he was given a place in the committee on foreign affairs of which John C. Calhoun was chairman. He was re-elected to the 14th congress in 1814 and was admitted to the bar of the U.S. supreme court. He opposed the war with Great Britain, but ad- vocated the strengthening of the defences ; op- posed a tariff for protection on the ground that he did not wish to see the young men of the country shut out from external nature, and con- fined in factories with the whirl of spools and spindles, and the grating of rasps and saws con- stantly sounding in their ears. He favored specie payment and ojjposed the enlistment bill. "When challenged by John Randolph to the "field of honor " he refused to meet him but declared him- self " prepared at all times to repel in a suitable manner the aggression of any man who may pre- sume upon such a refusal." His growing law practice induced him to remove to Boston in June. 1816. and after the close of his second term he retired from public life to take up the practice