osition and his high reputation as a lawyer, orator, and statesman made
him, therefore, a character of the first importance in Washington, a fact
to which Mr. Clay at once gave public recognition by placing his future
rival at the head of the Judiciary Committee of the House.

The six years of congressional life which now ensued were among the most
useful if not the most brilliant in Mr. Webster's whole public career. He
was free from the annoyance of opposition at home, and was twice returned
by a practically unanimous popular vote. He held a commanding and
influential and at the same time a thoroughly independent position in
Washington, where he was regarded as the first man on the floor of the
House in point of ability and reputation. He was not only able to show his
great capacity for practical legislation, but he was at liberty to advance
his own views on public questions in his own way, unburdened by the outside
influences of party and of association which had affected him so much in
his previous term of service and were soon to reassert their sway in all
his subsequent career.

His return to Congress was at once signalized by a great speech, which,
although of no practical or immediate moment, deserves careful attention
from the light which it throws on the workings of his mind and the
development of his opinions in regard to his country. The House had been in
session but a few days when Mr. Webster offered a resolution in favor of
providing by law for the expenses incident to the appointment of a
commissioner to Greece, should the President deem such an appointment
expedient. The Greeks were then in the throes of revolution, and the
sympathy for the heirs of so much glory in their struggle for freedom was
strong among the American people. When Mr. Webster rose on January 19,
1824, to move the adoption of the resolution which he had laid upon the
table of the House, the chamber was crowded and the galleries were filled
by a large and fashionable audience attracted by the reputation of the
orator and the interest felt in his subject. His hearers were disappointed
if they expected a great rhetorical display, for which the nature of the
subject and the classic memories clustering about it offered such strong
temptations. Mr. Webster did not rise for that purpose, nor to make
capital by an appeal to a temporary popular interest. His speech was for a
wholly different purpose. It was the first expression of that grand