The daily Madisonian. [volume] (Washington City [i.e. Washington, D.C.]) 1841-1845, 1842-04-23

the pOntichl IDOL OF the NOHnefh pOrtioh
Wing party, and 10 doubt his public virtue, or the
soundness Of his principles the rankest Of here
Sizes He brought TO the defence and advocacy oftha'
party principles, intellectual powers great perhaps
as ever were combined in any single staiesman-a
wide range of knowledge, eloquence, majestic OF
familiar as the required and reasoning powers
| before which fallacy could pass undetected whe
| theI concealed beneath the flowers Of metaphor, OF
snugy hid in the recesses Of logical formula In
the darkest hours ofhat party he led the fororn nope
Negecng profession to which few years assiduous
devotion would have given him competence, ne be-
came the champion Of a cause which seemed hopeless
In the Senate, discussing great constitutional ones,
tons, or at the stump speaking to the people, and
stormng prejudice with eloquence when It could not
be undermined with logic, he was "ever ready" His
put upon the rack for sounding epithes in his praise
and his really great powers sweed TO colossal dimen-
sons as seen in the magnifying mirrors Of partisan
prints He was called the "Godlike," and as an ora
tor was often favoraby compared with those OF old,
"Whose resistless eloquence
| Shook the arsenal and fulmned over Greece,
| To Macedon, to Artaxerxes' throne"
| In the campaign which resulted in the overthrow
Of Mr.. Van Buren's administration, he was in every
place where his aid was Misunderstanding or serving
fighting in the trenches, or giving laws for the con-
duct Of the battleit appeared all the same to him
Opposed to the most Calling fire of fierce political
hostility, he was not driven from his path His pub
lie and private life ruthlessly ransacked with no
honest intention; the former in poor attempt to
make him out traitor apostate and aristocrat the
latter to give pausibiity to misrepresentation, point
to epigram, or venom to a sneer. He passed
through the storm. His party succeeded, and all re-
member the shout OF congrauatlon whichran through
the Wing ranks when he nominated Secretary OF
State We were to have glorious times of peace and
prosperity All difficulties with foreign powers
would be satisfactorily settled and the lion would lie
down with the lamb The envy of political associates
was mute the roar of party hostility died away
and Daniel Webster appeared at the height of his
popularity
But times, it seems, have changed. A portion Of
Mr.. Websters former good friends have now turned
into malignant opponents and the Wing papers gen
orally have softened the tone of their eulogum.-
Periods which once glowed in his praise with words
that burn now flash with but momentary brightness
from the embers of their decayng fires. His ser
vices hardly appear remembered in the apparent de-
cline of his popularity the waters OF Lethe have
rolled over the memories of many OF his former
eulogiss. Detracton dogs him with keen scent,
and Adulation forbears her sweet music. And,
worse than ALL each of those puny pigmies of pol
tics who confound patriotism with place, and eoun-
try with cupdity, raises his own little anth of lies,
or handles into shape and proportion the tiny ugness
oil his own begoten imp OF caumny, to bear against
the great statesman, and crush him by the accretion
of small falsehoods One bright particular star, who
edits paper in the West, and whose poetical talents
cast such AN imaginative glow over his chronicles of
political facts, takes the field against him. A man
whose reach Of thought rarely extends beyond an
epigram, and whose logic finds fit utterance in pun
is to crush him who conquered Hayne, and measured
swords with Calhoun! And can Mr.. Webster stand
this invasion of wit from Lilliput We fear not
"Tremble, o thou brawny and thunder-scarred Iitan
for pleasant has come out against thee, and
thou shalt be laid low by Joker of Jokes, and he
shall talk his pleasant talk to thee and thou shalt be
no more ~ Pray heaven that the country be not
called to witness the affecting spectacle of giant
slaughtered with pins! >#A
The secret of this opposition we take to be this
Small politicians hate great statesman with cor
dial and very natural hatred, for he is reproach to
their narrowness of mind and bitter satire on their
poverty of soul. Mediocrity when united to Mean
ness and into the ranks of Faction, ever wages
its cunning and cowardly war of anonymous abuse
against the craftsmanship which detects its Objects
and thwarts its desgns.-There is no choice flower of
Bngsgae which it does not Gull for its purpose no
effort which it does not USE in its pursuit OF scandal
and petty detraction, TO
"Distort the truth, accumulate the lie
And heap the pyramid of calumny'
If the opposition to Mr.. Webster honest if it
really from difference of opinion on vital ques
tons of national policy if it were conducted on rules
of honorable mental warfare, no one would have any
objection to it, We are no defenders Of Mr., Web
sters peculiar political opinions, and with that modest
assurance which sits so amiable on the brow OF
newspaper editor, we have occasionally seen cause
to dissent from portions of his policy as Secretary of
State but we feel, as we trust every New England
man feels, be he honest Wing or honest Democrat, a
becoming pride in his intellectual greatness, and an
indsposton to see him betrayed by seeming friends,
or damned with the faint praise of trucking partisan
prints, made the mark for the poisoned arrows of
brazen and branless political fanatics It is as bad
see the hoof of the lifted against the lion in his
lair, against the dead lion. We feel assured that
Judging from what is before the public Mr.. Webster
accepted his present Office from pure and patriotic
motives THAT he remained in it, in the breaking up
Of the last cabinet from the motives; and that
good portion of the abuse now heaped upon him
comes from those who incapable OF approaching
disnterestedness in public servants and see nothing
more noble in official station than its oaves and fishes