The Opelousas journal. [volume] (Opelousas, La.) 1868-1878, 1869-10-02
Daniel Webster i'm his Old Age.

MIR. L. II. Curtis has elaborately an
swerd Alexander H. Stephens asser-
zion that Daniel Webster, as he ad-
vanced in years, approached the South
ern doctrine of State rights. In the
course of his reply, he makes the fol-
lowing interesting observations about
the old age of Mr.. Webster:
"Mr Stephens speaks or a change
that came a7er Mr.. Webster in his ma
turer years. In 1880, when hs electri-
fed the country by his Seply to Hayne,
he was forty-eight years of age. In
1885, when the debate with Mr.. Cal
houn occurred, he was ffty-one. In
1851 when Mr.. Stephens thinks him
more mature, and the subject has been
more fully discussed,' be was sixty
Mae. R died on the Oath October,
1852, in bis seventy-frst year.
Il am not aware that, at any period
of his life, Mr.. Webster exhibited any
materiaP abatement of his intellectual
powers. In the judgement of those who
saw him most frequently, apd observed
him most closely, there was less change
in him from the age of fifty to the age
of seventy than is common in men of in
tellectual pursuits. He himself was
sometimes observed, during the last ten
years of his life, when called upon to
make some particular and unusual effort,
to ba a little anxious concerning the
omparisons men might make of him
with what he had formerly teen. No
one, however, would Say that the speech
of the 9TH of March, 1850, exhibits any
decay of intellectual strength, or that
the famous Hulseman letter. is less
vigorous than any of his former pro-
ductions.
"On the other hand, If we were to
look for the period when his powers of
all kinds were iu their fullest vigor and
highest devslopement, we should un-
hesitatingly place it, in his case as in
that of most men, between the ages of
forty and sixty. Mr.. Stephens makes
a great mistake, too, as it seems to me,
in supposing that the nature Of the
Government had been more fully dis
cessed after 1853, and before 1851,
than it bad been down to the time when
was encountered. Nothing
of any importance had been added to
the Southern side of the controversy
after 1888, nor has there been anything
new said or written on that side of the
question since Mr.. Hayne and Mr.. Cal
houn left it in their arguments of 1880
and 1888. IfMr. Webster ever thought
that he had occasion to revise the sub
ject. he certainly had nothing new to
examise after 1888, for Mr.. Calhoun
had then exhausted his own side of the
question, in one of the greatest argu-
ments he ever made, aud all that be
ever said afterward was repetition of
himself.
Moreover, it would be an error, to
imagine that Mr.. Webster, in 1880,
came to the discussion of this great ques-
ion as to something which he had not
studied. The debate itself
If that year sprang up. suddenly; but
Mr.. Webster's preparation for it had
oeen made long before the occasion
arose, and he could have made the re-
ply to Hayne, just as we'll as he did
make it, at any time during the pre-
seeding ten years. To him there was
10 side of this question that needed to
be examined, when he was called upon
% encounter the doctrine of nulifcation
ind the proof of this is, that the Sec
md speech on Foot's resolution, which
the development of his doc
rine respecting the nature Of the Gov
and his reply to the whole of
Mr.. Haynes argument, was made from
/ brief prepared in single night. This
,rief, coverering but few pages of
ordinary letter paper, is now in my
possession.