Colonel Fletcher Webster. 55
exquisite humor, and peculiar " Yankee In 1841, when his father became
wit." When participating in amateur Secretary of State under President
theatrical exhibitions, he always pre- Harrison, Fletcher Webster relinquish-
ferred to play the role of the typical ed his professional prospects in the
Yankee, — a character now extinct, — West, and removed to Washington,
which he played to perfection. where he acted as his father's assistant.
As the son of Daniel Webster, he From his father's verbal suggestions,
might almost be said to have inherited he prepared diplomatic papers of the
the profession of the law, and in 1836 first importance; and no man could
he was admitted to the bar. In the perform that delicate service more
same ye^ he married the wife who satisfactorily to his father than he. It
survives him — a grandniece of Captain is understood that the famous Hulse-
White, who was so atrociously murdered man Letter, which, more than anything
at Salem, six years before, and whose else, distinguished Daniel Webster's
murderers might have escaped the second term of service in the depart-
gallovvs but for the genius and astute- ment of State, was thus prepared,
ncss of Daniel Webster. Whether he or some one else pre-
The Western States, which are now pared that extraordinary letter which Central States, were then attracting was to introduce Caleb Cushing to the miUions of the young and the enter- Emperor of China, which assumed prising from New England ; and that the Chinese were a nation of Fletcher Webster began the practice children, and which Chinese scholars of the law at Detroit, Michigan. But treated as conclusive evidence that the at the close of the year 1837, he re- Americans had not emerged from bar- moved to Peru, Illinois, where he barism, — we know not. But if he remained three years. During that did, he doubtless laughed at it after- period, he made the acquaintance of ward as a childish performance. Abraham Lincoln, then a struggling On the seventeenth of June, 1843, lawyer at the Sangamon County bar. Fletcher Webster witnessed the laying No man upon this planet had then less of the capstone of the monument on thought of becoming President of the Bunker Hill, and listened, with affec- United States than Abraham Lincoln ; tionate interest, to the oration which and no man had greater expectations was then delivered by his father, — an of attaining that distinction than Mr. oration which, if inferior to that de- Webster's father; yet a master-stroke livered at the laying of the comer- of the irony of destiny Hfted the ob- stone, was nevertheless every way scure Western attorney, not into the worthy of the man and the occasion, presidency merely, but into the highest — simple, massive, and splendid. A place in the pantheon of American few weeks later, he sailed from Boston history, while it balked and mocked for China, and watched, as he tells us, all the aspirations of New England's " while light and eyesight lasted, till the greatest son. Pondering on events summit of that monument faded, at like these, well did Horace Greeley last, from view." Many a departing, exclaim : " Fame is a vapor ; popularity many a returning, sailor and traveler, an accident ; riches take wings : the has given his " last, long, lingering only thing certain is oblivion." look" to that towering obelisk, but
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