Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 10.djvu/368

 AVEBSTER

WEBSTER

He (lefendeJ the Ashburton treaty against his own party, standing by President Tyler when deserted by the other members of liis cabinet. He re- signed, however, in May, 1843, and returned to the practice of hiw in Boston and the enjoyment of his farm at Marshfield, JIass. On June 17, 1S43, hemade his second Bunker Hill oration. He was not a candidate before the Whig national convention at Baltimore. May 1, 1844, but sup- ported Henry Clay. Rufus Choate, who had been elected liis successor in the U.S. senate, closed liis term March 3, 1845, and Mr. Webster was elected his successor, taking the seat four days after the passage of the resolution annexing Texas, and on April 6-7, 1846. he made his speech on the justice of the expenditures made in nego- tiating the " Ashburton treaty." He helped to the l)eaceable settlement of the Oregon boundary, and in 1847 voted for the Wilmot proviso and op- posed territorial aggrandizement in view of its dis- turbing the peace of the coimtrj' on the slavery issue. He visited the Southern states in 1847 and liis views on the rights of slaveholders appear to have modified, for while presenting the resolu- tions of the legislature of Massachusetts against its extension, he cautioned against the interfer- ence with the constitutional rights of the owners of slaves. He suffered a double loss in 1848 in the death of his daughter, Mrs. Appleton, in Boston, April 28, and of his son. Major Edward Webster, whose body was brought back from Mexico, where he had fallen in battle, and was buried May 3. Senator Webster was again a candidate for the Presidential nomination in 1848, but when the Whig national convention met at Pliiladelphia, June 7, and nominated Gen. Zachary Taylor, he refused the second place on the ticket against the advice of his political friends, and Fillmore was named, and in a speech at Marsh- field, September 1, he expressed his disappoint- ment emphatically by saying that the nomination of Taylor was " not fit to be made " but was dic- tated by " the sagacious, wise and far-seeing doctrine of availability." On March 7, 1850, he made the most famous of his later speeches on the public square in front of the Revere House, B<»ston. Faneuil Hall having been refused his use. In this speech he favored the compromises offered by Henry Clay; dwelt upon the constitu- tional rights of the i>eople of the slave states and made a legal defence of the Fugitive Slave law as proposed in the compromise. Senator Hoar (in 1899) attributed Webster's course at this time " not to a weaker moral sense but to a larger and profoumler prophetic vision." and in his resist- ance to the acquisition of California Senator Hoar ^.lys: " He saw what no other man saw, the c-rtainty of civil war." In 1850. wlien Pre.-sident Tavlor died and Millard FiUmore succe'-'de«l to the

Presidency, Webster was made Fillmore's secre- tary of state, which portfolio he accepted, July 23, 1850, resigning his seat in the senate July 22, Robert C. Winthrop filling it by appointment fron^ July 30, 1850, to Feb. 7, 1851, and Robert Rantoul, Jr., who was elected his successor, taking the seat, Feb. 22, 1851, and completing the term, March 3, 1851. On Dec. 21, 1850, Webster wrote the Hulse- man letter, in which he gave notice to the European powers that the United States was a great nation and as such had a right to express sympathy with any struggle for republican government. When the Whig national con- vention met at Baltimore, June 16, 1852, he was a candidate for the Presidential nomination and on the first ballot he received 29 votes, but on the 52d ballot Gen. Winfield Scott was nomi- nated. Webster refused to support the Whig candidate, and requested his friends to vote for Franklin Pierce, the Democratic nominee. In May, 1852, he was thrown from his carriage and seriously hurt. He was able to travel to Boston in July and to Washington for the last time in August, but on September 8 he returned to Marsh- field. He received the honorary degree of LL.D. from the College of New Jersey in 1818, Dart- mouth in 1823, Harvard in 1824, Columbia, 1824, and Allegheny college, 1840. Dartmouth college celebrated the centennial of his graduation Sept. 24-25, 1901, when the cor- nerstone of anew building known as Webster Hall was laid. His name in Class M, Rulers and States- men, received 96 votes and a place in the Hall of Fame for great Ameri- cans, October, 1900, stand- ing second only to that of George Washington and equal to that of Abraham Lincoln. Twenty bio- graphical sketches of Daniel Webster appeared in book form between 1831 and 1900 of more or less value to the student of history, but no really great "Life of Webster" had appeared. His works under the title Danitl Webster: Works, appeared in six octavo volumes in 1851, and his correspondence as Da?iJcMrf 6- ster: Private Correspondence, Edited bij Fletcher Webster appeared in 1857. A statue by Powell was placed in front of the Massachusetts State House; one by Ball in Central Park, New York; and a simple stone stands in the burial ground at Marshfield. He died at Marshfield, Mass., Oct. 24. 1852.