The Montgomery advertiser., 1901-09-05
THE MAKERS
 OF THE NATION
[By Clark Mills Brink. Pm D. ----.
 CHAPTyR VIII.

.
 If today popular vote was taken on the question. Who was the most prurfii- nent political genius Of American history during the nineteenth centuryf'' q large icrity.. would give their franchise to Daniel DaI .h, websteT-sne gsdlttks psnisp I dehcy ai he 'He never ssas attained. @ And Lincoln may, by some. at first thought, seem to outshine Webster, but LiNcoin and Web performed different work. In no sense can they be regarded as rivals. Each in his field was supreme. The fact that armament of our republic in no measure diminishes the glory of the other.
 In his own realm Webster was without 2 sp peer Towering calm and s sererle aboye iss, and sublime. the enc man Of the second quarter of this century whose fame in creases and grows more distinct as the years roll by. And yet he did not live among mediocre men; he was not sur rounded by . race of .pigmies: There were giants in those days" Among his Clay and Calhoun and Benton and Hayne and Choate and Mason, but in the per spective of the years he rises above them the distant observer above the other speaks of New Hampshire.
 Webster was 60 fortunate as to be born on farm Yet in his youth he was not much of farmer. But he had brains. The story is told that one day when moving he said to his father; This xed it. aofsh s he sass ssd sh as nan right. Well. Dan,". said the swarthy old man. suppose you hang 1t yourself"
 That % is about % the fee kind o of fl hans ss' ke l Whether 1t was this episode that his brother Zeke had in mind when he said sent him to college" is uncertain. but 1t is certain that Dan went to college. He | graduated from old Dartmouth in 1901, college % that he was invited to deliver the
 Fourth of July oration in Hanover, the college town. This fact is significant, as seoStoa shss S a arstor brad rey sa yspeesS msSe
 of thought or the m. estic simplicity of style. such as distinguished the utterances l of his mature life, but rather for the theme he treated. This showed the char
 acteristic bent of his mind. In this youth 1 full effusion he preached love of country. I fidelity to the Constitution as the true cor ner-stone and bulwark of national strength and permanencs. He urged the the Union. Thus he sounded the keynote of his political life, while yet boy in college for these were his great themes in his years of greatness.
 We cannot follow Webster through all the experiences of his life after leaving college. The story Is too long. A teach CT. law student in Boston. a successful lawyer, a member of Congress, United States Senator, Secretary of State-these covering a period of half a century. Such } is the outline of hts career. And yet how little they reveal of his life! How little of his services and sacrifices for his coun- try! How little of his disappointed am bition! How little of the bitter and un- just criticism which he endured! How little of his colossal genius!
 MT. Webster's greatest services to his country. were those performed in defend- 1xA ftNrNt Ia gave practically. Sd far as the people at large were concerned. a new interpreta- tion to that instrument. It would be too much to say that he originated that view, but his elaborate exhaustive and pro- found development of the doctrine gave currency to an interpretation which at first had held dominion in but few minds.
 Whatever may he the opinion now it is ypdeniable that in the early days or the republic very large proportion or the people held the Constitution to be u which any State might withdraw at will. Nor was this opinion held exclusively by
 er pfpy p1ynS second with England talk of secession was not uncommon among the Federalists-the legitimate. political predecessors of the the War to preserve the Union by keeping the seeding States in that Union by force. There Is god reason also; for believing that some of the leaders in the famous Hartford Convention were preparing to lead their States out of the Union. and would have attempted to do so had not peace been made with England. And that in New England It remained for Daniel Webster to teach new doetrlne and to weld it into system by the Titan. like blows of his remorseless loglc. BuI even he did not succeed in convincing all minds in his party. much less in the op- posite party. For as late as lS9l' "nen the Southern States were rushing lIlto secession, did not Horace Greeley, while deprecating their course yet advise the North to ''Iet the erring sisters go in
 The best known speech in which Web- ster combatted this old idea of the nature of the Union and set forth the theory that the Constitution is not compact ir4Iii ;n which any State may wtthdra" at Will but rather the fundamental law or ha- tioa, binding the States together into in, in- assouble unity was that 6r 6roWp w @s orS this speech is without a rival In the history of American eloquence' IL IS worthy to rank with the most tamous productions of Demosthenes a1d Cleer99 and Chatham and Burke and Fox and Sheridan. Tn thought. in literary e1pres, sion in delivery 1t was supreme, but II is not largely as work or eloquehce that l wish now to consider Il. ,,,.
 The Reply to Hayne" was delivered in the United States Senate in lsS9 Cal houn. the leading advocate ana defender of State sovereignty, had by this .ime developed and elaborated his theory into a solid and consistent system 1oruIleo
 
 arguments which his acute and logical mind could present in favor of nulnfca- ton as 2 constitution principle CaLn2un himself was at this time Nice-President and presiding officer of the Sen ate HIS chief lieutenant in advocating ils tayor1Le l doctrine was Colonel Hayne of south Carolina. Able. fearless. adroit, with that brilliant and fiery eloquence for which so many Southern statesmen have h:H, bee been justly famed. Hayne was worthy cham l pion. and an antagonist by no means to be despised. But in. Webster he found "a foeman worthy of his steel.
 Colonel Hayne made an elaborate speech. in the course of which he set forth the doctrine of notification with completeness that it had never at one time received before. But during the pre- ceding years of discussion another idea had been growing in the minds, of the people. the idea that. whatever the Con stitution had been at the outset. in 1850 1t had become the charter of a nation. It was Webster's task to present this idea with a completeness of detail, resistless- ness of logic and a masterly eloquance that should leave nothing more to be | wished Who has ever dared to say that 1 he failed in the task?