it. He
considered that he had been defrauded of the prize, and he had some
reason for thinking so. Some men avenge their wrongs by the pistol,
others by invective; but the only weapons which this man could wield
were abstract propositions. From the hills of South Carolina he hurled
paradoxes at General Jackson, and appealed from the dicta of Mrs.
Eaton's drawing-room to a hair-splitting theory of States' Rights.
Fifteen hundred thousand armed men have since sprung up from those
harmless-looking dragon's teeth, so recklessly sown in the hot
Southern soil.

Of the three men whom we have named, Daniel Webster was incomparably
the most richly endowed by nature. In his lifetime it was impossible
to judge him aright. His presence usually overwhelmed criticism; his
intimacy always fascinated it. It so happened, that he grew to his
full stature and attained his utmost development in a community where
human nature appears to be undergoing a process of diminution,--where
people are smaller-boned, less muscular, more nervous, and more
susceptible than their ancestors. He possessed, in consequence, an
enormous physical magnetism, as we term it, over his fellow-citizens,
apart from the natural influence of his talents and understanding.
Fidgety men were quieted in his presence, women were spellbound by it,
and the busy, anxious public contemplated his majestic calm with a
feeling of relief, as well as admiration. Large numbers of people in
New England, for many years, reposed upon Daniel Webster. He
represented to them the majesty and the strength of the government of
the United States. He gave them a sense of safety. Amid the flighty
politics of the time and the loud insincerities of Washington, there
seemed one solid thing in America, so long as he sat in an arm-chair
of the Senate-chamber. When he appeared in State Street, slowly
pacing, with an arm behind him, business was brought to an absolute
stand-still. As the whisper passed along, the windows filled with
clerks, pen in mouth, peering out to catch a glimpse of the man whom
they had seen fifty times before; while the bankers and merchants
hastened forth to give him salutation, or exchange a passing word,
happy if they could but catch his eye. At home, and in a good mood, he
was reputed to be as entertaining a man as New England ever held,--a
gambolling, jocund leviathan out on the sea-shore, and in the library
overflowing with every kind of knowledge that can be acquired wi