Daniel Webster

This article refers to former US Secretary of State Daniel Webster. For Florida Congressman, see Daniel Webster (Politician, 1949) .

Daniel Webster in his later years

Daniel Webster (born January 18, 1782 in Salisbury , Merrimack County , New Hampshire , † October 24, 1852 in Marshfield , Massachusetts ) was an American politician . He has served in both houses of Congress and has served twice as Secretary of State for the United States .

Life

Webster was born to the couple Ebenezer and Abigail Webster and lived on their parents' small farm, which his father received for his services in the French and Indian War. Although his parents were poor, they sent their son to the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter . The young Webster stayed there only nine months and then moved to Dartmouth College , where he graduated as a lawyer in 1801. In 1805 he opened his first law firm in Boscawen and in 1807 a new law firm in Portsmouth . He married Grace Fletcher in 1808, with whom he had a son.

Webster died on October 24, 1852 of a cerebral haemorrhage after a riding accident. The submarine USS Daniel Webster (SSBN-626) , Daniel Webster College in Nashua , New Hampshire, Webster County in the state of Kentucky and the city of Webster in Monroe County in the state of New York were named after him .

politics

Meanwhile joined the Federalist Party , Webster became its leader in 1812 and moved to the United States House of Representatives for a constituency in New Hampshire . In 1816 he left Congress and moved to Boston , in 1820 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences . In 1822 he was elected to the House of Representatives for an electoral district in Massachusetts, from 1827 he represented this state as a senator , since 1833 for the Whig Party . On March 6, 1841, he was named Secretary of State by President William Henry Harrison to succeed John Forsyth . He held this post until May 8, 1843 under Harrison's successor John Tyler , from whose cabinet at the behest of Henry Clay in 1841 all ministers except Webster had resigned as a political maneuver against Tyler. However, Webster did not want to be instrumentalized and insisted on continuing his work on the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with the United Kingdom to establish the border with Canada. When he had reached the treaty and Tyler needed a minister to approve the annexation of Texas , Abel P. Upshur succeeded him in 1843 . In 1845 he returned to the Senate. On July 23, 1850, President Millard Fillmore reappointed him as Secretary of State in his cabinet . Webster subsequently headed the State Department until his death in 1852.

Presidential candidacies

Daniel Webster, daguerreotype of Mathew Brady Studios , about 1849

Webster made several attempts to win the office of US President himself. In the presidential election in 1836 he was one of four regional candidates for the Whig Party , which tried to prevent a majority for the Democratic candidate Martin Van Buren in this way . Webster was originally intended as a candidate for the whole of New England , but was ultimately replaced in most states by William Henry Harrison on the ballot and in the end only ran in Massachusetts, where he also received the majority of the vote. The Whigs' plan failed, however, and Van Buren was elected president.

In the run-up to the 1848 presidential election , Webster ran again for the Whigs nomination. At the nomination party convention, however, he only finished fourth in the last ballot behind the victorious Zachary Taylor , Winfield Scott and Henry Clay . Webster turned down his candidacy for the vice presidency, saying he did not want to be buried until he was truly dead and in his coffin. He was alluding to the supposedly minor political significance of this office. Zachary Taylor, who was elected president, died after 16 months in office, Millard Fillmore, who had become Vice-President in Webster's place, succeeded him, under whom Webster served as Secretary of State. If Webster had accepted the vice presidency in 1848, he would have automatically become president after Taylor's death in 1850.

In 1852 Webster made another attempt to run for president. Again he could not get the delegates behind him at the nomination congress; Winfield Scott was elected as a candidate this time. As a result, Webster was run by the Union Party for the presidential election, a short-lived Whig breakaway from the southern states . His running mate for the vice presidency was Charles J. Jenkins of Georgia. However, Webster died a week before the election, which took place on November 2, 1852. Nevertheless, he and Jenkins received 6,994 votes, which corresponded to a share of 0.2 percent. The Democrat Franklin Pierce emerged as the election winner .

Second answer to Hayne

In the context of the looming crisis of nullification , Webster gave his most famous speech on January 27, 1830, "Second Reply to Hayne". Against Senator Hayne of South Carolina, who represented the state's right to nullify federal laws, Webster argued that such nullification would constitute treason against the United States. His speech ended with the words "Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!" (Freedom and Union, now and forever, together and inseparable!)

slavery

Daniel Webster on 1899 10 cent US Post stamp (overprinted with Guam )

In a speech on March 7, 1850, he declared that the pros and cons of slavery was not a question of moral principles, but of historical reality. He cited, among other things, the ancient Greeks, who had a democracy and still kept slaves, and the constitution, which granted every citizen all rights, but in his opinion did not guarantee the citizenship of blacks, even if they were in the states were born. He berated the abolitionists as troublemakers with no sense of the essentials, namely the preservation of the Union. Webster was one of the driving forces behind the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 , a law that required authorities in the northern states to arrest escaped slaves and return them to their owners in the south. On July 4, 1854, Henry David Thoreau , among others, argued against Webster , who argued that there was a higher constitution above the American constitution, namely the divine Christian one, and the prohibition of slavery.

literature

• Howard Jones: Daniel Webster. In: Edward S. Mihalkanin (Ed.): American Statesmen: Secretaries of State from John Jay to Colin Powell . Greenwood Publishing 2004, ISBN 978-0-313-30828-4 , pp. 523-534.

Web links

Commons : Daniel Webster  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Daniel Webster  - Quotes

• Daniel Webster in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Daniel Webster at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Wilfred Ellsworth Binkley, Malcolm Charles Moos: A Grammar of American Politics. The National Government. Alfred A. Knopf, New York 1949, p. 265 .