The Portland daily press., 1879-09-20
Recent Publications.

| Webster's Great Speeches, (Boston Little
| & Brown. This valuable and well-selected
edition of some of the most notable utterances
| of Daniel Webster, is volume which will not
be slow to meet substantial popular apprecia-
| tion. So great is the amount of the contribu-
| tions which Webster made to the literature of
! craftsmanship, that the ordinary reader, not
especially devoted to the study of political his
| tory, can hardly become thoroughly acquainted
with the course and the words of Daniel Web
| ster-unless by means of such representative
| selections as are contained in the present vol
ume. An essay by Mr.. Edwin P. Whipple,
| upon Daniel Webster as a Master of English
| Style, prefaces the oratons and speeches, and
sets forth strongly and effectively how wise,
powerful and considered was Webster's use of
the resources of the English language. His
naturalness, his pathos, his sarcasm, are finely
noted by Mr.. Whipple-who has in large de-
gree the critics first best gift the faculty of
admiration; his engrossing sympathy with the
! subject under notice, and his prompt and de-
| cided touch, place him in the front rank Of
American reviewers. The essay abounds in
well-taken points, and it fully repays careful
reading for itself as we'll as for the light it
| throws upon Mr.. Webster's work and charac-
ter. The freedom of the great orator from
meaningless and ill-considered phrases is en-
phatically noted his frankness, and the in
stinctive manner in which he made himself at
one with the jury, the assembly or whatever
crowd he might be addressing; and the tre-
mendous force of his unstinted invective are
n a.; 1,t+o fo,,
main, for Mr.. Webster in preparing his
speeches for publication was exceedingly solic-
itous that no personalities, uttered in the face
to-face fight of political or forensic debate,
should outlive the hour of which the excite
ment was their occasion. The early literary
manner of Webster-says Mr.. Whipple-"was
modelled on what was considered fine writing
at the opening of the present century" and his
Language was ornate to degree fairly comic,
But the stills of diction upon which the young
Webster promenaded himself were supported
upon the firm ground of good sense, and under
the grandiose msnnerisms which no young
writer in those days could well escape, the
genuine grandeur of Webster's mind was to be
recognized. 1t was Mr.. jeremiah Mason
whom Mr. Whipple characterizes as zone of
the greatest masters of the common law that
the country has ever produced" and "of all
lnen that ever appeared before jury, the
most Itiless realist'-who assisted greatly in
forming Daniel Webster as a lawyer, by the
example of his plain, conversational style as
we'll as by the strength and skill which his
prowess rendered needful and developed in his
young opponent. Numberless and great as are
the maxims of political counsel which Daniel
Webster's orations afford, those which bear
directly upon the questions of property and
currency now before the public mind, are
those to which the reader will first turn. His
mind was fully made up in favor of hard mon
ey and property as a basis for bank issues. His
custom was to revise his speeches with great
care (and Mr.. Henry j. Raymond testifes to
the trouble taken by both orator and reporters
| to render the meaning and expression clear
| and precise). Webster's great Plymouth
Grafton was delayed in publication as pamph-
| let for more than year, in order that no
misunderstanding Or wilful Misrepresentation
of the speakers vioYs upon the question of prop
| erty should be possible to any honest mind. Had
| it not been for one sentence-the keynote of
| this Grafton, ,indeed-Mr. Whipple believes that
| Daniel Webster would have been President of
| the United States. This sentence was "Gov-
| ernment is founded on property" Were it not
| for the clamorous and irresponsible crowd of
| communists who have risen up in the past few
| years. it would not be easy to imagine the out
| cry which malicious and foolish men made at
| this simple phrase "Aristocrat," and "enemy
| to the common people, were the epithets
| which were instantly applied to Mr. Webster,
| although his views were fully set forth as en-
bodying the most democratic principles in re-
| gard to the distribution of property, and adyo-
| eating laws tending to repress the too rapid
| and exclusive gathering Of money by few
| hands. This care in the use of language and
| moderation of statement even in his greatest
| moments were notable in Mr. Webster's ora
| tions. He had his favorite expressions-to
| which Mr.. Whpple thinks he impaired a
| meaning and richness by his significant use.
| Among these were the words respectable and
| Interesting, adiectives which he applied to the
| greatest men and most exciting moments, but
| which, Mr.. Whipple to the contrary, it is hard
to believe were ever raised from their mild in
adequacy and limited meaning. Returning to
seek for Mr.. Webster's opinions upon paper
| money "a search postponed for the moment for
| cause of brief comment upon this curious little
trait of his literary style) we find him saying in
his great speech upon the Tariff april 1920
several things as instructive to-day as upon
| the day of their utterance:
| In respect to the New England States, with the
condition of which am of course best acquainted
the present appears to me period OF very general
| prosperity. We are repre-
sented as the very verge and brink of national
| ruin. So far from acquiescing in these opinions,
believe there has been no period in which the gener
al prosperity was better secured or rested on more
solid foundation country them
| enjoying profound peace, perfect civil liberty,
with the means of subsistence cheap and abundant,
with the reward of labor sure and its wages higher
| than anywhere else, cannot be represented as in
gloom, melancholy and Distress but by the effort of
extraordinary powers of tragedy.
Mr Speaker has alluded to the strong inclination
which exists ha existed, in various parts of the
country to issue paper money, as a proof of great
very productive cause of those difficulties; and the
committee will not fail to observe that there is at
precisely where there has been the greatest attempt
| to relieve it by systems OF paper credit
Again in his speech upon a Redeemable Pa
| per Currency, delivered ON the 22d of February
1884, Mr.. Webster set forth even more forcibly
| than in the remarks just quoted, his detesta-
| tion of dishonest money:
have already endeavoredto warn the country
against irredeemable paper; against the paper OF
banks which do not pay specie for their own notes,
against mat miserable abomnabie ana aner of
policy which attempts to give value to any paper OF
any bank one single moment longer than snch pa
per is redeemable on demand in gold and silver;
| wish most solemnly and earnestly to repeat that
warning. We are in danger OF be-
| ing overwhelmed with irredeemable paper, mere
paper representing not gold nor silver no. Sir rep
resenting nothing but broken promis es, pad faith,
| bankrupt corporations, cheated creditors and a
ruined people.
These extracts are, of course, made from the
large and important volume of Mr.. Webster IS