for
intellectual superiority and respect for political services. While he
reigned as a political oracle for more than thirty years,--almost an
idol in the eyes of his constituents,--it was his misfortune to be
dethroned and reviled, in the last ten years of his life, by the very
people who had exalted and honored him, and at last to die
broken-hearted, from the loss of his well-earned popularity and the
failure of his ambitious expectations. His life is sad as well as
proud, like that of so many other great men who at one time led, and at
another time opposed, popular sentiments. Their names stand out on every
page of history, examples of the mutability of fortune,--alike joyous
and saddened men, reaping both glory and shame; and sometimes glory for
what is evil, and shame for what is good.

When Daniel Webster was born,--1782, in Salisbury, New Hampshire, near
the close of our Revolutionary struggle,---there were very few prominent
and wealthy families in New England, very few men more respectable than
the village lawyers, doctors, and merchants, or even thrifty and
intelligent farmers. Very few great fortunes had been acquired, and
these chiefly by the merchants of Boston, Salem, Portsmouth, and other
seaports whose ships had penetrated to all parts of the world Webster
sprang from the agricultural class,--larger then in proportion to the
other classes than now at the East,--at a time when manufactures were in
their infancy and needed protection; when travel was limited; when it
was a rare thing for a man to visit Europe; when the people were obliged
to practise the most rigid economy; when everybody went to church; when
religious scepticism sent those who avowed it to Coventry; when
ministers were the leading power; when the press was feeble, and
elections were not controlled by foreign immigrants; when men drank rum
instead of whiskey, and lager beer had never been heard of, nor the
great inventions and scientific wonders which make our age an era had
anywhere appeared. The age of progress had scarcely then set in, and
everybody was obliged to work in some way to get an honest living; for
the Revolutionary War had left the country poor, and had shut up many
channels of industry. The farmers at that time were the most numerous
and powerful class, sharp, but honest and intelligent; who honored
learning, and enjoyed discussions on metaphysical divinity. Their sons
did not then leave the paternal acres to become clerks