Daniel Webster free essay sample

Senate. He became famous as orator for his speeches supporting the Union and opposing the nullification movement and its supporters. Daniel was one of the greatest orators and debaters of his time, he fought congress, and fought for what he believed in, from the beginning of his career, and till the very end, whether he succeeded, failed, or if made a mistake he redeemed himself. After the French and Indian War, Ebenezer Webster wanted to return to his native town, get married and live off the land in Salisbury, New Hampshire. After settling there for ten years, in 1774, his first spouse Mehetable Smith died, but gave him five children in the span of those years. He then married another woman by the name of Abigail Eastman, she also gave birth to five children. The fourth child of Abigail, Daniel, born on January 18, 1782; as an infant he looked unhealthy and delicate, they weren’t sure if he was going to live. We will write a custom essay sample on Daniel Webster or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page The family lived on a farm and at an early age they did manual labor. He was very fragile so he had an exception that he didn’t have to work as hard as his other siblings. He got to spend more time exploring and learning about the ways of nature; he broadened his knowledge by devoting himself to learning new things. Daniel learned a good amount of knowledge from reading newspapers; the articles that were in the newspaper would usually be about political gossip. Another source of learning information was found from reading books that he could find from his mother and father’s collection. One of his favorite books to read was his mother’s Bible, where he would learn about its contents, and memorize its verses. At very young age he wanted to go to school, wether it were in his town, in another district, or even in school houses three miles away. He proved to others of his great memory, and it was one of his greatest talents of his many talents that helped him to become a great scholar. [1]â€Å"At the age of fourteen he attended a somewhat more advanced academy for a few months, in his first effort at public speaking there was a failure. He burst in to tears; his antipathy to public declamation appeared insurmountable, and neither frowns nor smilies could overcome the reluctance. It was overcome, for when young Webster felt the power which was in him, he boldly employed it. At first, however, he was a failure as a public speaker. With all this, he went forward in the acquisition of knowledge and the bracing of his mind; and in his fifteenth year he once undertook to repeat five hundred lines of Virgil, if his teacher would consent to listen. As an early teenager, he helped as an extra helper in a local lawyer’s office. What he got out of working at a lawyers office was that he picked up a good amount of the Latin language, and grammar, by regularly trying to attempt memorizing the material. The lawyer was insistent that he needs to further on his education, because not only did he feel that he had a gift of acquiring knowledge, and that he had a great mind, but others that knew him did as well. In 1794, Ebenezer took Daniel to his first day at Phillips Exeter Academy; his fellow classmates laughed at Daniel, because of the way he dressed and by the way he talked. When there are people who live in a completely different environment such as the country, and then transfer to going to school where these people who are from the city would’t normally see a farm boy such as Daniel Webster, he was criticized by his classmates, because he wasn’t like everyone else and, Daniel didn’t appreciate the criticism. He studied there at Phillips Exeter Academy for nine months, and dropped out because his family was suffering from financial problems. At age fifteen, he started teaching at a near by school house. The minister at Boscawen recognized young Daniel’s talents and saw him to be an individual who was in need of a college education. Dr. Samuel Wood tried to prepare him for college by teaching him Latin, and another individual tutored him in Greek, so he might have a good chance to be admitted into Dartmouth College in 1797. 2]â€Å"Dartmouth was actually a large and flourishing institution, numbering nearly a hundred and fifty students and graduating larger classes than any of its contemporaries except Harvard†(Current, 6). While in school he read all the English literature he could put his hands on, and he remembered the literature he read. While at Dartmouth College, he learned an abundant amount of history and learned about great Latin authors and strengthened his knowledg e of the Latin Language. During his college days he greater developed his gift of being a great orator. [3]â€Å"Without his forceful and instinct for the confusions and cohesions of the law, without illuminating wit and metaphors and the resounding symbolism oratory, without his truly great contributions at the bar, the epochal opinions of the Court might have been very different from what they were† (Baxter, 1). He loved to speak, he practiced off hand speaking but usually prepared himself for a speech by mediating on the certain subject and making notes. He was known for entering into a classroom and start off his speech in a low voice as if it were a sleepy manner, then would he would slowly raise his voice to be a very strong and commanding voice. He had a way that he presented his words to his audience, he would have his listeners completely under control and he could persuade them quite easily. After getting his degree from Dartmouth College in 1801, he returned to Salisbury, NH, where he began to study law and more English literature, and when he found some spare time he would fish and hunt. He was later that year offered job as a schoolmaster in the town of Fryeburg, Maine. He was an excellent teacher, because he showed perfect dignity, level temper, and imperturbable composure, which made his students respect him. He continued to resume his law studies, resigned at the academy in Fryeburg, and took a the initiative to take the trip to Boston to introduce himself to a one of the most respected lawyers in the Boston area, his name was Christopher Gore. Dartmouth College was hardly established before the disputes between John Wheelock and the college’s board of trustees went into a debate that nearly threatened the college. Convinced by President Wheelock, Governor of Plumer, New Hampshire. The state legislature passed measures to put aside the board of trustees and to rename the institution Dartmouth University. They refused to be frightened, and the former board of trustees carried on to operate Dartmouth College along side with the university until the disagreement was settled ultimately by legal action in the presence of the Supreme Court, and Daniel Webster stood for the College. To get a better understanding into the cause of the case of Dartmouth v. Woodward shows the real significance of the decision brought down by the Supreme Court. The New Hampshire legislature was convinced that since the majority of the funds to run the college were from the public branch, the college should be a University and for that reason a public institution. The Supreme Courts decision to respect the original charter as landmark since it is an example that even though the money for an institution may be from public money, it is not automatically considered a public learning institution. The Supreme Court suggested that the controlling factor regarding an institution is public or isn’t, would be made up of whom ever is in charge of it and isn’t where the money is from. The decision passed on by Chief Justice Marshall on February, 1819, to help protect the original charter making it free of meddling from the state, and this was one of the most important announcements on the academic freedom of private institutions to occur in American law. In 1819, the state of Maryland approved a law imposing a tax on all banks operating in Maryland not chartered by the state. 4]â€Å"Vetoing the bill, Jackson sent it back to Congress with a message in which he condemned the bank as constitutional, undemocratic, and un-American. Though Webster and Marshall long since had asserted its constitutionality in the case of McCulloch v. Maryland. Jackson insisted that the president had as much right and duty to interpret the constitution as did the Supreme Court† (Curren t, 77). The law brought forth that all banks were prohibited from sending out bank notes except upon stamped paper sent by the state. The law brought the fees to be paid for the paper and established penalties for violations. McCulloch, the cashier of the Baltimore branch of the Bank of the United States, issued bank notes without complying with the Maryland law. The state of Maryland sued McCulloch for failing to pay the taxes, under the Maryland law and McCulloch contested the constitutionality of that act. The state court found for Maryland and McCulloch appealed. In the Massachusetts convention of 1820, Daniel Webster took a stand for the removal of religious tests for the holders of office, and in a speech in favor of the feature of property representation in the senate he studied the heory and the practice of bicameral legislation. [5]â€Å"On the 22nd of December, 1820, he delivered at Plymouth the oration which commemorated the two-hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims†(Lodge, 2). Webster was invited by the Plymouth Society to speak in their celebration of the Mayflower’s landing at Plymouth. Daniel Webster’s famous Plymouth Oration did much establish to the Pil grims as the forebear’s of America. In 1823, Ogden brought this lawsuit seeking an order to restrain Gibbons from running the steam ships on New York waters in violation of his exclusive privilege. 6]â€Å"The origins of the Gibbons case are traceable to the time when Americans were developing the steamboat as means of transportation. In order to encourage this form of navigation, the New York legislature enacted several statutes granting an exclusive right to Robert R. Livingston and Robert Fulton or their assignees to operate steamboats on the states waters† (Baxter, 196). Ogden was granted the order and Gibbons appealed, declaring that his steamships were licensed under the act of congress. Gibbons declared that the act of congress replaced the exclusive privilege granted by the state of New York. The chancellor declared the order, holding that the New York law granting the exclusive privilege was not repulsive to the Constitution and laws of the United States. Gibbons appealed and the decision was declared by the court for the trial of impeachments and correction of errors. In 1822, he got nominated into Congress from the Boston district in 1822, and he was twice reelected by a popular vote that was almost unanimous. In 1823, he took his congressional seat, and in the same year, the Speaker of the House, Henry Clay, appointed him chairman of the judiciary committee. He held a commanding and influential position in Washington. He presented his views on the public questions and showed great capacity for practical legislation. While he was in congress he had two recognized speeches. Daniel Webster took a stand on January 19, 1824, to offer a resolution in favor of suppling by law for the expenses incident to the appointment of a commissioner to Greece. The Greeks were then in the struggle of revolution, and the sympathy for the heirs in their strive for freedom was strong among the American people. He then delivered a speech on 1-2 April, 1824, on the bill that was introduced to congress to revise the tariff, and to extend the operation of the protective system. In 1827, Daniel Webster was elected to the United States senate. [7]â€Å"He was a Senator Webster now, in 1827. Within the next six years he was to win the brightest of all his honors in the never-ending tourney of political debate. †(Current, 47) In 1828, the US Congress passed the first import Tariff, a protective tax. The tariff increased the cost of imported goods, and aas a result protected some of the new industries of the North. The South, whose economy was based on the export of the cotton did not manufacture significant products opposed the tariff. [8]â€Å"A tariff must protect America against the pauper labor of Europe. Shifting to the slavery question, he spiritedly attacked expansionists now crying for the annexation of Texas. He objected on both moral and constitutional grounds to taking more slave states into the Union. As usual, he conceded that congress could not abolish slavery in the states in which it already existed†(Baxter, 256). Webster on January 19, 1830, confronted Haynes state rights theme and was successful in changing the debate from the narrow issues of the tariff and public land policy to the more vast concerns of slavery and the essence of the union. Acknowledging the Wests problem with slavery; Hayne accused that the North was trying to destroy the South through its recent change to high protective tariffs and its ever more vocal objection to slavery. He attacked Daniel Websters inconsistency on the tariff and helped his listeners to remember that the doctrine of nullification included among its supporters of Madison and Jefferson, as well as Webster, and those in New England who was in the support of the Hartford Convention during the war in 1812. On January 21, 1828, his wife Grace Fletcher died, and he lost his brother Ezequiel in April 10, 1829, which was only a years span of each family member’s death. He was hurt because he loved these two people very much. Towards the end of the year of 1829, he marries Caroline Le Roy. Webster and Jackson were on good terms and were allies, but it wasn’t so when they discussed their views on maintaining the Union. Webster was one who publicly supported a protective tariff, internal improvements, and the national bank. Jackson and Webster had too many different political views that he felt that he needed to side more with Henry Clay in the Whig party, more than with Andrew Jackson in the Democratic party. On his return in December from England with his family, he discovered that the Whigs had this time united upon General Harrison for their candidate, because he had the same kind of popular enthusiasm that had elected Jackson. Daniel Webster was offered the Secretary of State position and he accepted the office in President Harrisons administration, and soon showed himself to be able in negotiations as in other departments of statesmanship. The Webster-Ashburton Treaty, signed 9 August 1842, was negotiated by US Secretary of State Daniel Webster and Alexander Baring, first Lord Ashburton of Britain. Daniel Webster and Alexander Baring met in 1842 to establish a series of agreements on United States and British relations. This is a letter written from Ashburton to Webster, and he said, [9]â€Å"In short, I shall positively not outline this affair, if it is to be much prolonged. I had hoped that these gentlemen from the Northeast would be equally averse to this roasting. Could you not press them to come too the point and say whether we can or cannot agree? I do not see why I should be kept waiting while Maine and Massachusetts settle their accounts with the General Government. Pray save me from these profound politicians, for my nerves will not stand so much cunning wisdom. Ever my dear sir, yours sincerely† (Lewis, 316). The British and the Americans were back to the negotiating a treaty that would clearly establish boundaries, and avoid another call to arms like that in the War of 1812. The boundaries of Maine and New Brunswick were finally agreed to. Daniel Webster was opposed to the annexation of Texas and his fellow Whigs insisted that he should leave his cabinet. In May 1843, he did resign from his position, because he was against the annexation of Texas, the Mexican American War, and President Tyler’s political views. Webster returned to the Senate in 1845, and spoke out to the American people on how he felt was right and his views on the Mexican American War and the annexation of Texas. 10]â€Å"On May 13, 1846, war was declared. Webster was in New England for the installation of his friend Edward Everett as President of Harvard, and did not vote against the declaration of war, but he was opposed to it and was inclined to treat the situation lightly. † (Lewis, 348) Henry Clay introduced the Compromise of 1850, which was a series of five bills, the goal of the Compromise of 1850 was to deal with the spread of slavery territories to keep the northe rn interests and the southern interests into balance. Following the lead of senators Henry Clay and Stephen Douglas, Webster supported Clays plan to assure sectional balance in Congress. [11]â€Å"Clay’s bill contained several components. It would admit California as a free state. It provided for the organization of the remainder of the land acquired from Mexico as a result of the Mexican-American War into a new territory, called New Mexico, without determining whether slavery would be allowed there.