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.
