"Daniel Webster" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... power on March 4, 1841, with "Tippecanoe" for a figure-head and Daniel Webster as its conductor of the "grand orchestra." A month later Bancroft was removed, and Hawthorne went with him, not at all regretful to depart. In fact, he had come to feel that he could not endure the Custom House, ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... at Dartmouth, at the great celebration in honor of Daniel Webster, that famous college gave the highest honor in its power to a Negro, amid the applause of the brilliant assembly. And there was no applause more earnest or hearty than that of the successor of Taney, the ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... conceded to our desires and gave us land enough to carve out four States, and there yet remains enough for four more. When we wanted power to recapture our slaves when they fled North for refuge, Daniel Webster told Northerners to conquer their prejudices, and they gave us the whole Northern States as a hunting ground for our slaves. The Presidential chair has been filled the greater number of years by Southerners, and the majority of offices has been shared ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... the present volume is not to supersede the standard edition of Daniel Webster's Works, in six octavo volumes, edited by Edward Everett, and originally issued in the year 1851, by the publishers of this volume of Selections. It is rather the purpose of the present publication to call attention anew to the genius and character ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... never to be nobody. Did you ever hear of Isaac Watts—that wrote, "Let dogs delight to bark and bite"—sticking his fingers in a boy's mouth to get 'em bit, like a fool? I'm clean discouraged with ye. Why didn't ye go for his nose, the way Jonathan Edwards, and George Washington, and Daniel Webster used to do, when they was boys? Couldn't 'cause he had ye down? That's a purty story to tell me. It does beat all that you can't learn how Socrates and William Penn used to gouge when they was under, after the hours and hours I've ...
— The Universal Reciter - 81 Choice Pieces of Rare Poetical Gems • Various
... the African taint could be detected in his appearance. Ray, the comrade who had revealed it, claimed that it was plainly perceptible, while Yerrinton, the oldest student among us, declared that there was not a trace of it to be seen. He argued that Anthony was several shades lighter than Daniel Webster, and he asserted enthusiastically that he had various traits in common with that great statesman. But, then, Yerrinton was a disciple of Beriah Green, and his opinion was not regarded as unbiassed. For myself, I could never detect any appearance of African blood in Anthony, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, October 1885 • Various
... to that House an account of all payments made on President's certificates from the fund appropriated by law, through the agency of the State Department, for the contingent expenses of foreign intercourse from the 4th of March, 1841, until the retirement of Daniel Webster from the Department of State, with copies of all entries, receipts, letters, vouchers, memorandums, or other evidence of such payments, to whom paid, for what, and particularly all concerning the northeastern-boundary dispute with ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... charters. We were regularly against it. So we bought a hand printing-press and set it up in the garret of our establishment. All the bills we received from our customers, some thousands sometimes every week, we smoothed out and put in a pile, and then printed on their backs a saying we took from Daniel Webster (though I believe it was not quite authentic): 'Of all the contrivances to impoverish the laboring classes of mankind, paper money is the most effective. It fertilizes the rich man's field with the poor man's sweat.' They tried to punish us for defacing money, but we beat them. We didn't deface ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... distinguished Americans visited the ex-king. Among these were Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, and John Quincy Adams. General Lafayette, also, when he came to this country, was received with great state by the Count de Survilliers, the title under which Joseph Bonaparte ...
— Stories of New Jersey • Frank Richard Stockton
... work a talent for catching likenesses, and, searching for a wider field, proceeded finally to Washington, where he modelled busts in wax of Andrew Jackson, Daniel Webster, John C. Calhoun, John Marshall, and other celebrities of the period. From wax, he naturally wished to graduate into marble, and in 1837, left America for Italy, never to return. Greenough, then laboring away at his Washington, ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... longer any good chances for young men," complained a youthful law student to Daniel Webster. "There is always room at the top," replied the ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... people's constitution, the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people."—Daniel Webster's reply to Hayne, 1830. "Speeches and Orations." E. P. Whipple, Boston, Little, ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... States," replied the spirit gravely, "and died shortly before the civil war. People came from other cities to hear my sermons, and the biographical writers have honoured my memory by saying that I was a great man. I was contemporaneous with Daniel Webster and Henry Clay. Shortly after I reached threescore and ten, according to earthly years, I caught what I considered only a slight cold, for I had always had good health, but it became pneumonia. My friends, children, and grandchildren came to see me, and all seemed going well, when, without warning, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... in the future for her and their sisters. More utter self-abnegation and more cheerful and devoted self-sacrifice have rarely been exhibited, and it was all done with a simplicity which commands our reverence. It was more than should have been asked, and a boy less accustomed than Daniel Webster to the devotion of others, even with the incentive of brotherly love, might have shrunk from making the request. The promise of future support was easily made, but the hard pinch of immediate sacrifice had to be borne at once. ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... case—pedigree, birth, father and mother, brothers and sisters, education, physiognomy, personal habits, dress, mode of speech; nothing escapes him. It was a characteristic criticism of his, on one of Miss Martineau's American books, that the story of the way Daniel Webster used to stand before the fire with his hands in his pockets was worth all the politics, philosophy, political economy, and sociology to be found in other portions of the good lady's writings. Carlyle's eye was indeed a terrible ...
— Obiter Dicta • Augustine Birrell
... from 1825 to 1850, the most important fact in American political development continued to be a fight between an inadequate conception of democracy, represented by Jackson and his followers, and a feeble conception of American nationality, represented best by Henry Clay and Daniel Webster; and in this second fight the victory still rested, on the whole, with the Democrats. The Whigs were not annihilated as the Federalists had been. In the end they perished as a party, but not because of the assaults of their opponents, but ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... part, has been an actor. Each man, every man, who has made his mark has chosen his character, the character best adapted to himself, and has played it, and clung to it, and made his impress with it. I have but to conjure up the figure of Daniel Webster, who never lost an opportunity to act; or General Grant, who chose for his model William of Orange, surnamed the Silent. You will find every one of your most admired heroes choosing early in life some admired hero of his own to copy. Who can doubt that Napoleon ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... and belittling! I would that every judge who tends to this weakness (and nearly every judge, yes, and nearly every other person tends to it) might find his steps arrested by the warning example of Daniel Webster. This pre-eminently intellectual man, whom nature had fitted to soar in the high sphere of absolute and everlasting law, had so shrivelled his soul by his worship of the Constitution that he came, at last, to desire no other inscription on his grave-stone than ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... Droop hurriedly deposited his two boxes upon the floor and followed his monitor, closely imitating his every step and gesture. Having no sword, he thought it best to put his left hand into his bosom, an attitude which he recollected in a picture of Daniel Webster. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... extending irregularly across the State of New Hampshire, and varying in width, from which have gone forth men who have won a national reputation. From this section went Daniel Webster, Lewis Cass, Levi Woodbury, Zachariah Chandler, Horace Greeley, Henry Wilson, William Pitt Fessenden, Salmon P. Chase, John Wentworth, Nathan Clifford, and ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume I. No. VI. June, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... In will and fine sense of honor he was as firm and lofty as Jackson or Jefferson. He it was who said that he would "rather be right than President." His death was followed in October by that of his great rival, Daniel Webster. This great American orator was born in 1782, the son of a New England farmer. He was graduated from Dartmouth College, and began the study of law. While reading Vattel, Montesquieu, and Blackstone, he eked out a humble income as a school teacher. He became associated ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... the biggest Hand of any one at the Exercises. After denouncing the predaceous Interests he relapsed into an attitude of Meditation, with the Chin on the starched Front, very much like a Steel Engraving of Daniel Webster. ...
— Ade's Fables • George Ade
... brought about largely by the Federalist, a paper in which he so ably interpreted the provisions of that instrument that it has ever since been regarded as one of the world's political classics. As Secretary of the Treasury under Washington he performed wonders; Daniel Webster said of his work in this office: "He rent the rock of the national resources, and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of Public Credit, and it sprung upon its feet." He was born in Nevis, one ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... grandmother who used to sit in a corner and read old books, once nick-named the youth "Rise and Progress." As soon as he could write, he always signed his name D. W. Weaver, and insisted that the initials stood for Daniel Webster. ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... in Scotland might have been glad to hear Christopher North and the Ettrick Shepherd bandy jests and swap stories. As for trout,—was there one in Massachusetts that would not have been curious to listen to the intimate opinions of Daniel Webster as he loafed along the banks of the Marshpee,—or is there one in Pennsylvania to-day that might not be drawn with interest and delight to the feet of Joseph Jefferson, telling how he conceived and wrote RIP VAN WINKLE on the banks ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... Daniel Webster made his celebrated speech, in which he defended this compromise, and the abolitionists of the North were filled with indignation, which found its most fitting expression in ...
— The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe • Charles Edward Stowe
... England furnished in Daniel Webster one of the world's great orators. He was born in Salisbury, New Hampshire, and educated at Dartmouth College. It was said half humorously that no one could really be as great as he ...
— History of American Literature • Reuben Post Halleck
... "you'll see the great Daniel Webster; he's a great man, I tell you; King William, number four, I guess, would be no match for him as an orator—he'd talk him out of sight in half an hour. If he was in your house of Commons, I reckon he'd make some of your great folks look pretty streaked—he's a true patriot and statesman, the first ...
— The Clockmaker • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... how the stevedores on the docks in Liverpool turned and looked at Daniel Webster and said, "There goes the King of America," has been related of James Oliver. He was a commanding figure, with the face and front of a man in whom there was no parley. He was a good man to agree with. In ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Daniel Webster meeting a woman with her two boys loaded down with bundles, at the Jersey Ferry, in New York. The lady had lost her fortune through the failure of her husband. She was poor, and the old set ignored her. But she lived in a ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... the windy trees, on the mountain shoulder overlooking the whole length of Napa Valley, as the man aloft looks down on the ship's deck. There they kept house, with sundry horses and fowls, and a family of sons, Daniel Webster, and I think George Washington, among the number. Nor did they want visitors. An old gentleman, of singular stolidity, and called Breedlove—I think he had crossed the plains in the same caravan with Rufe—housed ...
— The Silverado Squatters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was held in the State House at Boston, when a resolution was adopted to memorialize Congress on the subject of "restraining the increase of slavery in new States to be admitted into the Union." The memorial was drawn by Daniel Webster, and signed by himself, George Blake, Josiah Quincy, James T. Austin, and others. The New York Legislature passed resolutions against the extension of slavery into the territories and new States; and requested the Congressmen and instructed the Senators from that State not to vote ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... evening sessions of mourning, while the Committee was in Boston, he gave an account of his campaign, and he recited a speech made by a young orator who went out with him as an aid. The speech opened thus: "Fellow Citizens; who is Daniel Webster? Daniel Webster is a man up in Massachusetts making a dictionary. Who is General Harrison? Everybody knows who General Harrison is. He is Tippecanoe and Tyler too. But who is Martin Van Bulen? Martin Van Bulen! He is the man who bought the wood in the Orleans, paid twenty-four dollars ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... the unfolding of your powers. From the plain fields and lowlands of Avon came the Shakespearean genius which has charmed the world. From among the rock-ribbed hills of New Hampshire sprang the greatest of American orators and statesmen, Daniel Webster. From the crowded ranks of toil, and homes to which luxury is a stranger, have often come the leaders and benefactors of our race. Indeed, when Christ came upon earth, His early abode was a place so poor and so much despised that men thought He could not be the Christ, asking, in utter astonishment, ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... Speeches, Orations, and Diplomatic Papers of Lewis Cass, are in press at Baltimore, under the editorship of Mr. George H. Hickman. The Speeches, Forensic Arguments, and Diplomatic Papers of Daniel Webster (to be comprised in six large octavo volumes), are in the press of Little & Brown of Boston, under the care of Mr. Edward Everett. The Memoirs and Works of the late John C. Calhoun are soon to be published in Charleston, by Mr. R. K. Craller, ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2, May, 1851 • Various
... in this direction were really but a statement of his approbation of positions laid down before him by Daniel Webster. In the early stages of the Dartmouth College case, when it was before the State courts in New Hampshire, it was Webster and his associates, Jeremiah Mason and Jeremiah Smith, both lawyers of the highest rank, who first put forward the doctrine that the charter ...
— The American Judiciary • Simeon E. Baldwin, LLD
... a few other Americans who, in their various fields, might perhaps deserve to be entitled great. Shall we say Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, John Marshall, Robert Fulton, S. F. B. Morse, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Daniel Webster, Horace Greeley, Henry Ward Beecher, Admiral Farragut, General W. T. Sherman, James Russell Lowell, Nathaniel Hawthorne, General Robert E. Lee? None of these people were Presidents of the United States. But to the man in the street ...
— Four Americans - Roosevelt, Hawthorne, Emerson, Whitman • Henry A. Beers
... Daniel Webster is taken from a book just issued by the Fowler & Wells Co., New York, entitled, "A Natural System of Elocution and Oratory," founded upon analysis of the Human Constitution. By Thomas A. Hyde and William Hyde. Among other valuable subjects which this book ...
— The New England Magazine Volume 1, No. 6, June, 1886, Bay State Monthly Volume 4, No. 6, June, 1886 • Various
... men's teeth. I know of no two more pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country. Nor will they, themselves deny the charge. In fact this noise-making twain are the two sticks of a drum, keeping up what Daniel Webster called 'The rub-a-dub ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... hostile to the Scriptures, but not one of these theories is held today." Bacon's remark is still true: "There never was found in any age of the world either religion or law that did so highly exalt the public good as the Bible." And John Marshall and Prince Bismarck agree with Daniel Webster when he says: "If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible our country will go on prospering and to prosper; but if we and our posterity neglect its instructions and authority no man can tell ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume 10 (of 10) • Various
... a pause of indecision. Mrs. Harmon—she was the dignified Daniel Webster of the circle, and just the opposite of the small and sprightly Mrs. Wright—was yet ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... President Monroe's declaration," said Daniel Webster, "was felt everywhere by all those who could understand its object, and foresee its effect." Lord Brougham said in Parliament that "no event had ever created greater joy, exaltation, and gratitude, among all the freemen ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1 • Various
... "Rowdy" and they informed him, on application, that, though these professions were highly popular in America and extensively followed, they knew no French synonyms into which they could be translated. The landlord, not content with the sign manual of Daniel Webster, affirming that all was right, applied to an American friend for a translation of the inexplicable professions, but I am not sure that he has even yet been fully enlightened ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... B. Seabrook, a southern gentleman, has lately written a pamphlet on the management of slaves, in which he says: "An addition of one million dollars to the private fortune of Daniel Webster, would not give to Massachusetts more than she now possesses in the federal councils. On the other hand, every increase of slave property in South Carolina, is a fraction thrown into the scale, by which her ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... destructive amusement was in full operation. George Washington, the eldest blossom, was shearing a resigned kitten; Gusty and Ann Eliza were concocting mud pies in the ashes; Adelaide Victoria was studying the structure of lamp-wicks, while Daniel Webster and Andrew Jackson were dragging one another in a clothes-basket, to the great detriment of the old ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... in the Merrimac, which interfered with transportation. The supply of oak and pine about Lake Winnipiseogee, and along the Merrimac and its tributaries, was thought to be practically inexhaustible. In the opinion of Daniel Webster, the value of this timber had been increased $5,000,000 by the canal. Granite from Tyngsborough, and agricultural products from a great extent of fertile country, found their way along this channel to Boston; while the return boats supplied taverns and country ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume II. No. 2, November, 1884 • Various
... with this number of the Bay State a fac-simile reproduction, from a rare copy in our possession, of "An Oration, pronounced at Hanover, New Hampshire, the Fourth Day of July, 1800," by Daniel Webster. This oration was delivered when the future statesman was in his eighteenth year. It cannot fail to interest every reader of the Magazine, and will be a treat to ...
— The Bay State Monthly - Volume 1, Issue 4 - April, 1884 • Various
... Daniel Webster was often the central figure at banquets in the Pemberton. General Sam Houston, Senator from Texas, was also entertained, for I remember that my father told me of an incident that occurred many years after, when he passed through San ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... striving for a masterly finish to the unequal combat. He arose, dissembling cheerful confidence, straightened the frame of a steel-engraved Daniel Webster on the wall, and thrice paced the length of the room, falsely appearing to be engaged in ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... the fork was to be had which belonged to the knife, why, even that were not only unworthy of the man, but so utterly unlike him, for he never indulged in rhetoric or rhodomontade or claptrap, that one would be inclined to think he was beside himself, or had been dining out, like Daniel Webster when he proposed, in the Senate Chamber, to plant our starry banner on the outermost verge, the Ultima Thule, of our disputed territory, heedless of consequences. Both Pierpont and Calhoun certainly forgot ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... the productions of his mind, the presence and pressure of his whole nature, in each intellectual act, keeps his opinions on the level of his character, and stamps every weighty paragraph with "Daniel Webster, his mark." The characteristic, of all his great speeches is, that the statements, arguments, and images have what we should call a positive being of their own,—stand out as plainly to the sight as a ledge of rocks or ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 • Various
... will never be, never can be, Daniel Webster. Shall he therefore be put under guardianship, and forbidden to vote? Suppose woman, though equal, does differ essentially in her intellect from man, is that any ground for disfranchising her? Shall the Fultons say to the Raphaels, because you ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... allegiance was all to the old-time classic school, to the ideal that still survives, and inexpugnably, in the rustic breast and even in the national senate; the Roman Forum was never completely absent from his eye, and Daniel Webster remained the undimmed pattern of all that man—man ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... good to Rev. Daniel Webster Davis, blessing him with intellectual force, blessing him with poetic utterance, blessing him with oratorical ability, blessing him in domestic felicity. Not yet in his prime, yet so richly endowed in the gifts which make men strong and powerful, it is hoped that he ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... come from Vermont," continued Mr. McLean, "is no cause for extra pride. Shoo! I was raised in Massachusetts myself, and big men have been raised there, too,—Daniel Webster and Israel Putnam: and a lot ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... not catch on, he said. Perhaps if he had tried to write as he talked, tell the things just as they popped into his mind, he would have been luckier; but that wasn't literature, he said, and so most of his written things read like one of Daniel Webster's speeches. We could listen to him talking all night long; but when he brought out one of his manuscripts, it was good-night and hammocks ...
— Wide Courses • James Brendan Connolly
... Caldwell Calhoun has been described by Daniel Webster as "plain, strong, terse, condensed, concise; sometimes impassioned, still always severe. Rejecting ornament, not often seeking far for illustrations, his power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, in the closeness of his logic, ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... another legend that Daniel Webster, Rufus Choate and Nathaniel Hawthorne were all distantly related through the Batchelder family. There are said to be red and black Batchelders, like the Douglas family in Scotland; and the black Batchelders have a rare gift of intellect which only comes to the surface when united with ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns |
