Daily evening star. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1852-1854, 1854-04-08
MORE ABOUT THE HULsEMANN LETTER.
Mr. Everett's Draft Burnt.

BosToN, April 6, 1854.
Dear Sir: Since wrote to you YES
terday, 1 have learned the interesting
denouement of Mr.. Everett's and Fletcher
Webster's correspondence. AS I told
you, the other executors, and such of the
old friends of Daniel Webster as were in
formed of Mr.. Everett's application, were
very much excited; but when they learn
ed that he had ordered thousand printed
copies of the draft for general circulation,
they were alarmed, and, after putting
heads together awhile, resolved that it
must be stopped. They went to Mr..
Everett, and, between arguments and
threats, made him tear up the draft letter
and abandon his pretensions forever.
The principle ground Of their insisting
upon this course was, that the whole
world had been taught to believe that
Webster wrote that letter, and. what was
woIse, Webster himself, in one of his
letters, in 1852, had boosted of having
written it at Franklin, New Hampshire,
and referred to it, in reply to Horace
Mann's attacks upon his incorporate
habits and decrepitude, as evidence that
he was as good as new" After thus
running himself for the Presidency, AMI
being run by all his friends, including
MIR. Everett, on the strength of this let
ter, they insisted, that it would never do,
whether they looked to the good name
of the dead or of the living, to come out
with the admission, that both Webster
and Everett knew that they were hum
bugging the public all the time. Everett
had not looked at it in this light exactly,
and was entirely unprepared for the OPP
position he encountered. OF course,
therefore, he backed out, and I am as
sured, tore up the draft and threw it into
the fire. ] presume all his printed copies
experienced similar fate.
When heard of Everett's pretensions
to the authorship Of the Hulsemann let
ter, was little curious to see what he
had said of it in his memoir of Webster.
On turning to the volume, l find only
this paragraph
1.-The correspondence with the Aus
trian Charge dAffaires is the worthy
complement, after an interval of quar-
ter of century, to the profound discus
sion of international politics contained in
the speech of January, 1924, on the rev.
olution of Greece, and that of 1926, on
the Congress of Panama"
This is the only allusion to the subject
in Eycrett's edition of Webster's works.
The letter itself is copied without note
Or comment. This extraordinary silence
about document which gave Webster
more foreign and about as much domestic
reputation as any one thing he ever did,
may now be constructed to imply pur-
pose on the part of MIR. Everett, even du-
ring Mr.. Webster's life, to be ready to
be ready to reclaim his epistolary off.
spring whenever the occasion should be
propitious.
His case is hard one, but fear it is
past cure. The friends of Mr.. Webster
will insist, that, even if Everett did hold
the pen, he had been first crammed by
the Secretary, and the substantial merit
and power of the document were derived
from him. This cannot easily be gain
said, whether true or false; and MIR.
Everett's draft, after all, is only proof
that the phraseology is his, except to
those who are prepared to believe him
better informed and prepared to write
the document in question than Mr.. Web
| Ster was. IN.