Henry Cabot Lodge - Daniel Webster

Returning to Boston, Mr. Webster was admitted to the bar in March, 1805. Mr. Gore moved his admission, and, in the customary speech, prophesied his student's future eminence with a sure knowledge of the latent powers which had dictated his own advice in the matter of the clerkship. Soon after this, Mr. Webster returned to New Hampshire and opened his office in the little town of Boscawen, in order that he might be near his father. Here he devoted himself assiduously to business and study for more than two years, working at his profession, and occasionally writing articles for the "Boston Anthology." During this time he made his first appearance in court, his father being on the bench. He gathered together a practice worth five or six hundred a year, a very creditable sum for a young country practitioner, and won a reputation which made him known in the State.

In April, 1806, after a noble, toiling, unselfish life of sixty-seven years, Ebenezer Webster died. Daniel assumed his father's debts, waited until Ezekiel was admitted to the bar, and then, transferring his business to his brother, moved, in the autumn of 1807, to Portsmouth. This was the principal town of the State, and offered, therefore, the larger field which he felt he needed to give his talents sufficient scope. Thus the first period in his life closed, and he started out on the extended and distinguished career which lay before him. These early years had been years of hardship, but they were among the best of his life. Through great difficulties and by the self-sacrifice of his family, he had made his way to the threshold of the career for which he was so richly endowed. He had passed an unblemished youth; he had led a clean, honest, hard-working life; he was simple, manly, affectionate. Poverty had been a misfortune, not because it had warped or soured him, for he smiled at it with cheerful philosophy, nor because it had made him avaricious, for he never either then or at any time cared for money for its own sake, and nothing could chill the natural lavishness of his disposition. But poverty accustomed him to borrowing and to debt, and this was a misfortune to a man of Mr. Webster's temperament. In those early days he was anxious to pay his debts; but they did not lie heavy upon him or carry a proper sense of responsibility, as they did to Ezekiel and to his father. He was deeply in debt; his books, even, were bought with borrowed money, all which was natural and inevitable; but the trouble was that it never seems to have weighed upon him or been felt by him as of much importance. He was thus early brought into the habit of debt, and was led unconsciously to regard debts and borrowing as he did the sacrifices of others, as the normal modes of existence. Such a condition was to be deplored, because it fostered an unfortunate tendency in his moral nature. With this exception, Mr. Webster's early years present a bright picture, and one which any man had a right to regard with pride and affection.

The occasion of Mr. Webster's first appearance in court has been the subject of varying tradition. It is certain, however, that in the counties where he practised during his residence at Boscawen, he made an unusual and very profound impression. The effect then produced is described in homely phrase by one who knew him well. The reference is to a murder trial, in which Mr. Webster gained his first celebrity.

"There was a man tried for his life, and the judges chose Webster to plead for him; and, from what I can learn, he never has spoken better than he did there where he first began. He was a black, raven-haired fellow, with an eye as black as death's, and as heavy as a lion's,—that same heavy look, not sleepy, but as if he didn't care about anything that was going on about him or anything anywhere else. He didn't look as if he was thinking about anything, but as if he would think like a hurricane if he once got waked up to it. They say the lion looks so when he is quiet…. Webster would sometimes be engaged to argue a case just as it was coming to trial. That would set him to thinking. It wouldn't wrinkle his forehead, but made him restless. He would shift his feet about, and run his hand up over his forehead, through his Indian-black hair, and lift his upper lip and show his teeth, which were as white as a hound's."

Of course the speech so admired then was infinitely below what was done afterwards. The very next was probably better, for Mr. Webster grew steadily. This observer, however, tells us not what Mr. Webster said, but how he looked. It was the personal presence which dwelt with every one at this time.

Thus with his wonderful leonine look and large, dark eyes, and with the growing fame which he had won, Mr. Webster betook himself to Portsmouth. He had met some of the leading lawyers already, but now he was to be brought into direct and almost daily competition with them. At that period in New England there was a great rush of men of talent to the bar, then casting off its colonial fetters and emerging to an independent life. The pulpit had ceased to attract, as of old; medicine was in its infancy; there were none of the other manifold pursuits of to-day, and politics did not offer a career apart. Outside of mercantile affairs, therefore, the intellectual forces of the old Puritan commonwealths, overflowing with life, and feeling the thrill of youthful independence and the confidence of rapid growth in business, wealth, and population, were concentrated in the law. Even in a small State like New Hampshire, presenting very limited opportunities, there was, relatively speaking, an extraordinary amount of ability among the members of the bar, notwithstanding the fact that they had but just escaped from the condition of colonists. Common sense was the divinity of both the courts and the profession. The learning was not extensive or profound, but practical knowledge, sound principles, and shrewd management were conspicuous. Jeremiah Smith, the Chief Justice, a man of humor and cultivation, was a well read and able judge; George Sullivan was ready of speech and fertile in expedients; and Parsons and Dexter of Massachusetts, both men of national reputation, appeared from time to time in the New Hampshire courts. Among the most eminent was William Plumer, then Senator, and afterwards Governor of the State, a well-trained, clear-headed, judicious man. He was one of Mr. Webster's early antagonists, and defeated him in their first encounter. Yet at the same time, although a leader of the bar and a United States Senator, he seems to have been oppressed with a sense of responsibility and even of inequality by this thin, black-eyed young lawyer from the back country. Mr. Plumer was a man of cool and excellent judgment, and he thought that Mr. Webster on this occasion was too excursive and declamatory. He also deemed him better fitted by mind and temperament for politics than for the law, an opinion fully justified in the future, despite Mr. Webster's eminence at the bar. In another case, where they were opposed, Mr. Plumer quoted a passage from Peake's "Law of Evidence." Mr. Webster criticised the citation as bad law, pronounced the book a miserable two-penny compilation, and then, throwing it down with a fine disdain, said, "So much for Mr. Thomas Peake's compendium of the 'Law of Evidence.'" Such was his manner that every one present appeared to think the point settled, and felt rather ashamed of ever having heard of Mr. Peake or his unfortunate book. Thereupon Mr. Plumer produced a volume of reports by which it appeared that the despised passage was taken word for word from one of Lord Mansfield's decisions. The wretched Peake's character was rehabilitated, and Mr. Webster silenced. This was an illustration of a failing of Mr. Webster at that time. He was rough and unceremonious, and even overbearing, both to court and bar, the natural result of a new sense of power in an inexperienced man. This harshness of manner, however, soon disappeared. He learned rapidly to practise the stately and solemn courtesy which distinguished him through life.