Daniel Webster

by Irving H. Bartlett

Book Overview

For forty years, until his death in 1852, Daniel Webster played a dominant national role as a lawyer, orator, congressman, senator, secretary of state, leader of two major parties, and perennial presidential candidate. This new biography, drawing on the recently collected Webster papers, explains the Webster phenomenon in terms of the powerful positive and negative images he projected for nineteenth-century Americans.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393009963
• ISBN13: 9780393009965
• Release Date: January 1981
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 348 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

An Unbiased Biography.

The purpose of this book is to understand the three Daniel Websters- the "Godlike" Daniel, "Black Dan", and the man somewhere in between. Biographer Claude Fuess remarked that it was difficult to uncover Webster's "essential personality". Mr. Bartlett starts the book with Webster's family history, his childhood and ill health. The details of his pursuit of an education. He also and the ability to memorize and recall what he read in a very short time. Along the way, the author details the attorneys and politicians that influenced Webster early on, as well as his contemporaries. He was a powerful speaker even as a student. Some of the author's assessment of Webster shed some light on Daniel Webster. From page 87- "Daniel Webster was a man born to be at the center of things and he loved being there." On Webster's conservatism- "But Webster's nationalism was conservative. He insisted that the political power of the nation through the federal government was limited and repeatedly emphasized the role of local institutions for 'local purposes and general institutions for general purposes'". Some more related issues that Mr. Bartlett addresses are: Webster's exhaustive, unsuccessful pursuit of the presidency and some of the political tactics that he used. His adversarial relationship with some journalists of the day. This led to numerous questionable assaults on his fidelity, none of them ever proven. Daniel Webster and Henry Clay's role in John Quincy Adams securing of the presidency in 1824. Webster's keeping a retainer as legal counsel from a client (Wheelock, the president of Dartmouth)that he later opposed in court on that same case. The ethics of the nineteenth century were very different than those of today. Webster's ties to Nicholas Biddle and the Bank of the United States and how it severely handicapped his aspirations for the highest office he sought. Some of Daniel Webster's accomplishment as Secretary of State are examined. Another political position that is puzzling was the decision late in his political career to support the Fugitive Slave Act alienating him from his constituents and a large block of his financial supporters. Financial supporters was another hard to understand point. Webster was a wealthy attorney that died with substantial unpaid debts. The author states on page 209 that "Webster had a double character." This is evident from reading DANIEL WEBSTER. He was a paradox, both as a man and as a politician. This book approaches the subject of Daniel Webster from an unbiased view.