ey did not love
him, and that was the reason he was never President, for he was too great
to succeed to the high office, as many men have, by happy or unhappy
accident. There was also another feeling which is suggested by the
differences with some of his closest friends. There was a lurking distrust
of Mr. Webster's sincerity. We can see it plainly in the correspondence of
the Western Whigs, who were not, perhaps, wholly impartial. But it existed,
nevertheless. There was a vague, ill-defined feeling of doubt in the
public mind; a suspicion that the spirit of the advocate was the ruling
spirit in Mr. Webster, and that he did not believe with absolute and
fervent faith in one side of any question. There was just enough
correctness, just a sufficient grain of truth in this idea, when united
with the coldness and dignity of his manner and with his greatness itself,
to render impossible that popularity which, to be real and lasting in a
democracy, must come from the heart and not from the head of the people,
which must be instinctive and emotional, and not the offspring of reason.

There is no occasion to discuss, or hold up to reprobation, Mr. Webster's
failings. He was a splendid animal as well as a great man, and he had
strong passions and appetites, which he indulged at times to the detriment
of his health and reputation. These errors may be mostly fitly consigned to
silence. But there was one failing which cannot be passed over in this way.
This was in regard to money. His indifference to debt was perceptible in
his youth, and for many years showed no sign of growth. But in his later
years it increased with terrible rapidity. He earned twenty thousand a year
when he first came to Boston,--a very great income for those days. His
public career interfered, of course, with his law practice, but there never
was a period when he could not, with reasonable economy, have laid up
something at the end of every year, and gradually amassed a fortune. But
he not only never saved, he lived habitually beyond his means. He did not
become poor by his devotion to the public service, but by his own
extravagance. He loved to spend money and to live well. He had a fine
library and handsome plate; he bought fancy cattle; he kept open house, and
indulged in that most expensive of all luxuries, "gentleman-farming." He
never stinted himself in any way, and he gave away money with reckless
generosity and heedless profusion, often not stopping to i