f Calhoun had allowed South Carolina to nullify a
United States law, President Jackson would have made good his threat and
hanged both him and Hayne on one tree, and the people would have approved
the act. But Webster did not get the case quashed: he got only a
postponement. In Eighteen Hundred Sixty, South Carolina moved the case
again; she opened the argument in another way this time, and a million
lives were required, and millions upon millions in treasure expended to
put a construction on the Constitution that the framers did not intend;
but which was necessary in order that the Nation might exist.

In the battle of Bull Run, almost the first battle of the war, fell
Colonel Fletcher Webster, the only surviving son of Daniel Webster, and
with him died the name and race.

* * * * *

The cunning of Webster's intellect was not creative. In his argument there
is little ingenuity; but he had the power of taking an old truth and
presenting it in a way that moved men to tears. When aroused, all he knew
was within his reach; he had the faculty of getting all his goods in the
front window. And he himself confessed that he often pushed out a masked
battery, when behind there was not a single gun.

Under the spell of the orator an audience becomes of one mind: the dullest
intellect is more alert than usual and the most discerning a little less
so. Cheap wit will then often pass for brilliancy, and platitude for
wisdom. We roar over the jokes we have known since childhood, and cry
"Hear, hear!" when the great man with upraised hands and fire in his
glance declares that twice two is four.

Oratory is hypnotism practised on a large scale. Through oratory ideas are
acquired by induction.

Webster was a lawyer; and he was not above resorting to any trick or
device that could move the emotions or passions of judge and jury to a
prejudice favorable to his side. This was very clearly brought out when he
undertook to break the will of Stephen Girard.

Girard was a freethinker, and in leaving money to found a college devised
that no preacher or priest should have anything to do with its management.
The question at issue was, "Is a bequest for founding a college a
charitable bequest?" If so, then the will must stand. But if the bequest
were merely a scheme to deprive the legal heirs of their rights--diverting
the funds from them for whimsical and personal reasons--then the will
should be broken. Mr. W