the States. To have thus linked his name indissolubly with the perpetuity of our institutions is enough of glory for any citizen of the republic.

X.

MR. CHANDLER said:

Mr. SPEAKER: The selection of the present time to make special and official reference to the death of Mr. Webster may be regarded as fortunate and judicious. An earlier moment would have exposed our eulogies to those exaggerations which, while they do justice in some measure to the feelings whence they spring, are no proofs of sound judgment in the utterer, nor sources of honor to their lamented object. The great departed owe little to the record of their worth, which is made in the midst of sudden emotions, when the freshness of personal intercourse mingles with recollections of public virtues, and the object observed through the tears of recent sorrow, bears with it the prismatic hues which distort its fair proportions, and hide that simplicity which is the characteristic of true greatness. And equally just is it to the dead whom we would honor, and to our feelings which would promote that honor, that we have not postponed the season to a period when time would so have mitigated our just regret as to direct our eulogies only to those lofty points of Mr. Webster's character which strike but from afar; which owe their distinction less to their affinities with public sympathy than to their elevation above ordinary ascent and ordinary computation.

That distance, too, in a government like ours, is dangerous to a just homage to the distinguished dead, however willing may be the survivor; for smaller objects intervene, and by proximity hide the proportions which we survey from afar, and diminish that just appreciation which is necessary to the honorable praise that is to perpetuate public fame.

Mr. Webster was a distinguished statesman,-tried, sir, in nearly all the various positions which, in our Government, the civilian is called on to fill, and in all these places the powers of a gifted mind, strengthened and improved by a practical education, were the great means by which he achieved success, and patriotism the motive of their devotion. With all Mr. Webster's professional greatness, with all his unrivalled powers in the Senate, with his great distinction as a diplomatist, he was fond of credit as a scholar; and his attainments, if not of the kind which gives eminence to merely literary men, were such as gave richness and terseness to his own composition, and vigor and attraction to his conversation. His mind was moulded to the strong conception of the epic poet, rather than the gentle phrase of the didactic; and his preference for natural scenery seemed to partake of his literary taste-it was for the strong, the elevated, the grand. His childhood and youth joyed in the rough sides of the mountains of New Hampshire, and his age found a delightful repose on the wild shores of Massachusetts Bay. He was a lover of Nature, not in her holiday suit of field and flower, but in those wild exhibitions of broken coast and isolated hills, that seem to stir the mind into activity, and provoke it into emulation of the grandeur with which it is surrounded. Yet, sir, Mr. Webster had with him much of the gentleness which gives beauty to social life, and dignity and attraction to the domestic scene, just as the rugged coast is often as placid as the gentlest lake, and the summit of the roughest hill is frequently bathed in the softest sunlight, and clad in flowers of the most delicate hues. Mr. Webster's person was strongly indicative of the character of his mind; not formed for the lighter graces, but graceful in the noblest uses of manhood; remarkable in the stateliness of his movements, and dignified in the magnificence of its repose. Mr. Webster could scarcely pass unnoticed, even where unknown. There was that in his mien which attracted attention, and awakened interest; and his head, (whether his countenance was lighted by a smile, such as only he could give, or fixed by contemplation, such as only he could indulge) seemed an

"arch'd and ponderous roof,

By its own weight made steadfast and immovable,
Looking tranquillity!"

In

With all Mr. Webster's lofty gifts and attainments, he was ambitious. Toiling upward from the base of the political ladder, it is not to be denied that he desired to set his foot upon the utmost round. This could not have been a thirst for power: nothing of a desire for the exercise of absolute authority could have been in that aspiration; for the only absolute power left (if any be left) by the Constitution in the Executive of this nation is "MERCY." Mr. Webster it was the distinction which the place conferred, and the sphere of usefulness it presented. He regarded it as the crowning glory of his public life-a glory earned by his devotion of unparalleled talents and unsurpassed statemanship. This ambition in Mr. Webster was modesty. He could not see, as others saw and felt, that no political elevation was necessary to the completion of his fame or the distinction of his statesmanship. It was not for him to understand that the last round of political preferment, honorable as it is, and made more honorable by the lustre which purity of motive, great talents, and devoted patriotism are now shedding down upon it,-he could not understand that preferment, honorable as it is, was unnecessary to him; that it could add nothing to his political stature, nor enlarge the horizon of his comprehensive views. It is the characteristic of men of true greatness, of exalted talents, to comprehend the nature and power of the gifts they possess. That, sir, is a homage to God, who bestows them. But it is also their misfortune to be dissatisfied with the means and opportunities they have possessed to exercise those gifts to great national purposes. This is merely distrust of themselves. The world, sir, comprehends the uses of the talents of great statesmen, and gives them credit for their masterly powers, without asking that those powers should be tried in every position in which public men may be placed.

I see not in all the character, gifts, and attainments of Mr. Webster, any illustration of the British orator's exclamation, relative to "the shadows which we are;" nor

do I discover in the splendid career and the aims of his lofty ambition any thing to prove "what shadows we pursue."

The life of such a man as Daniel Webster is one of solid greatness; and the objects he pursued are worthy of a being made in the image of God. A life of honorable distinction is a substantive and permanent object. The good of man, and the true glory and happiness of his country, are the substantial things, the record of which generation hands down to generation, inscribed with the name of him who pursued them.

I will not, sir, trespass on this House by any attempt to sketch the character, or narrate the services of Mr. Webster; too many will have a share in this day's exercise to allow one speaker so extensive a range. It is enough for me, if, in obeying the indications of others, I give to my effort the tone of respect with which the statesman and the patriot, Webster, was regarded, as well by the nation at large as by those whom I have the honor to represent on this floor. And in the remarks of those whose means of judging have been better than mine, will be found his characteristics of social and domestic life.

How keenly Mr. Webster relished the relaxations which public duties sometimes allowed, I had an opportunity of judging; for he loved to call to my recollections scenery which had been familiar to me in childhood, as it was lovely to him in age. The amusements, in which he gratified a manly taste in the midst of that scenery, were promotive of physical recuperation, rendered necessary by the heavy demands of professional or official life. He was stimulated to thought by the activity which the pursuits on land required, or led to deep contemplation by the calmness of the ocean on which he rested. Though dying in office, Mr. Webster was permitted to breathe his last in those scenes made classical to others by his uses, and dear to him by their ministrations to, and correspondence with, his taste.

The good of his country undoubtedly occupied the last moments of his ebbing life; but those moments were not disturbed by the immediate pressure of official duties; and in the dignity of domestic. quiet, he passed onward; and

while at a distance communities awaited in grief and awe the signal of his departure, the deep diapason of the Atlantic wave, as it broke upon his own shore, was a fitting requiem for such a parting spirit.

XI.

MR. BAYLY, of Virginia, remarked:

I had been, sir, nearly two years a member of Congress before I made Mr. Webster's acquaintance. About that time a proceeding was instituted here, of a delicate character so far as he was concerned, and incidentally concerning an eminent constituent and friend of mine. This circumstance first brought me into intercourse with Mr. Webster. Subsequently, I transacted a good deal of official business with him, some of it also of a delicate character. I thus had unusual opportunities of forming an opinion of the man. The acquaintance I made with him, under the circumstances to which I have referred, ripened into friendship. It is to these circumstances that I, a political opponent, am indebted for the honor, as I esteem it, of having been requested to say something on this occasion.

From my early manhood, of course, sir, I have been well acquainted with Mr. Webster's public character, and I had formed my ideal of him as a man; and what a misconception of it was that ideal! Rarely seeing him in public places, in familiar intercourse with his friends, contemplating his grave, statue-like appearance in the Senate and the Forum, I had formed the conception that he was. a frigid, iron-bound man, whom few could approach without constraint; and I undertake to say that until of late years, in which, through personal sketches of him by his friends, the public has become acquainted with his private character-such was the idea most persons who knew him