h the press, gave the orator universal celebrity in
the Northern States, and was one of the many causes which secured his
continuance in the national councils.

Such was his popularity in Boston, that, in 1824, he was re-elected to
Congress by 4,990 votes out of 5,000; and such was his celebrity in
his profession, that his annual retainers from banks, insurance
companies, and mercantile firms yielded an income that would have
satisfied most lawyers even of great eminence.

Those were not the times of five-thousand-dollar fees. As late as
1819, as we see in Mr. Webster's books, he gave "advice" in important
cases for twenty dollars; his regular retaining fee was fifty dollars;
his "annual retainer," one hundred dollars; his whole charge for
conducting a cause rarely exceeded five hundred dollars; and the
income of a whole year averaged about twenty thousand dollars. Twenty
years later, he has gained a larger sum than that by the trial of a
single cause; but in 1820 such an income was immense, and probably not
exceeded by that of any other American lawyer. Most lawyers in the
United States, he once said, "live well, work hard, and die poor"; and
this is particularly likely to be the case with lawyers who spend six
months of the year in Congress.

Northern members of Congress, from the foundation of the government,
have usually gratified their ambition only by the sacrifice of their
interests. The Congress of the United States, modelled upon the
Parliament of Great Britain, finds in the North no suitable class of
men who can afford to be absent from their affairs half the year. We
should naturally choose to be represented in Washington by men
distinguished in their several spheres; but in the North, almost all
such persons are so involved in business that they cannot accept a
seat in Congress, except at the peril of their fortune; and this
inconvenience is aggravated by the habits that prevail at the seat of
government. In the case of a lawyer like Daniel Webster, who has a
large practice in the Supreme Court, the difficulty is diminished,
because he can usually attend the court without seriously neglecting
his duties in Congress,--usually, but not always. There was one year
in the Congressional life of Mr. Webster when he was kept out of the
Supreme Court for four months by the high duty that devolved upon him
of refuting Calhoun's nullification subtilties; but even in that year,
his professional income was more than s