Part 30 (2/2)
”He recalled the last words of Webster, 'I am content'; of John Quincy Adams, 'This is the last of earth'; and even the cheerless exclamation of Mirabeau, 'Let my ears be filled with martial music, crown me with flowers, and thus shall I enter on ed with these reflections, and hoping to find the nucleus of a funeral sermon, the minister made inquiry of the son of the deceased parishi+oner, 'What were the last words of your father?' The unexpected reply was 'Pap he didn't have _no last words;_ mother she just stayed by him till he died'
”And now, my friends, as the curtain falls, ht, But in so!'”
XXIX THE LOST ART OF ORATORY
DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECHES--HIS PATRIOTIC SERVICE IN FORMULATING THE ASHBURTON TREATY--PRENTISS'S DEFENCE OF THE RIGHT OF MISSISSIPPI TO REPRESENTATION--THE EFFECT OF HIS ELOQUENCE ON A MURDERER--HIS PLEA FOR MERCY TO A CLIENT--WEBSTER WINS AN APPARENTLY HOPELESS CASE--INGERSOLL'S REVIEW OF THE CAREER OF NAPOLEON--HON ISAAC N PHILLIPS'S EULOGY UPON ABRAHAM LINCOLN--SENATOR INGALLS'S TRIBUTE TO A COLLEAGUE--A SINGLE ELOQUENT SENTENCE FROM EDWARD EVERETT-- SPEECH OF NOMINATION FOR WILLIAM J BRYAN--MR BRYAN'S ELOQUENCE --CLOSING SENTENCES OF HIS ”PRINCE OF PEACE”
One of the entlemen I have ever knoas the late Gardner Hubbard His last years were spent quietly in Washi+ngton, but earlier in life he was an active member of the Massachusetts bar
Inincidents of Daniel Webster, hom he ell acquainted In the early professional life of Hubbard, Mr Webster was still at the bar; his speech for the prosecution in the memorable Knapp enerations of lawyers
As a powerful and eloquent discussion of circumstantial evidence, in all its phases, it scarcely has a parallel; quotations fro his description of the stealthy tread of the assassin upon his victim! We seem to stand in the very presence of murder itself:
”Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim and on all beneath his roof A healthful old man, to whoht held hi eh the , already prepared, into an unoccupied aparthted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches to door of the chamberThe face of the innocent sleeper is turned froray locks of his aged teiven, and the victile, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death The deed is done He retreats, retraces his steps to the , passes out through it as he came in, and escapes
He has done the murder No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him
The secret is his own, and it is safe”
The speech throughout shows Webster to have been the perfect master of the hus What picture could be more vivid than this?
”Such a secret can be safe nowhere The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe Not to speak of that eye which pierces through all disguises and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe fro, that murder will out True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by sheddingdiscovery Meantiuilty soul cannot keep its own secret It is false to itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself
It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant”
The closing sentences of the speech--which resulted in the conviction and execution of the prisoner--will endure in our literature unsurpassed as an inspiration to duty:
”There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly froarded A sense of duty pursues us ever It is os of theand dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery If we say, 'the darkness shall cover us,'
in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us
We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God race to perform it”
Upon one occasion, when in Boston, Mr Hubbard and I visited together Faneuil Hall He pointed out the exact place upon the platform where he saw Mr Webster stand when he delivered his speech in vindication of his course in re colleagues had resigned The schis ranks, occasioned by the veto of party measures, paramount in the Presidential contest of 1840, and the bitter antagonisendered between Henry Clay and President Tyler, will readily be recalled The rupture mentioned occasioned the retirement of the entire Cabinet appointed by the late President Harrison, except Mr Webster, the Secretary of State His reasons for reree patriotic, and his speech in Faneuil Hall a triu public service he rendered while in a Cabinet hich he had not partisan affiliation was for, in conjunction with the British Minister, the Ashburton treaty If Mr Webster had rendered no other public service, this alone would have entitled hieous from so many points of view to the United States, adjusted amicably the protracted and perilous controversy--unsettled by the convention at Ghent--of our northeastern boundary, and possibly prevented a third war between the two great English-speaking nations The words once uttered of Burke could never with truth be spoken of Webster: ”He gave to party that which was intended for his country”
Mr Hubbard insisted that the speech mentioned stood unrivalled in the real years had not dimmed his recollection of the appearance of ”the God-like Webster” when he exclai party die! Then, Mr President, _where shall I go?”_
Some years before, I heard Wendell Phillips allude to the above speech in his celebrated lecture upon Daniel O'Connell He said, when the startling words, ”Then, Mr President, where shall I go?” fell fro of awe pervaded the vast asse that the world would surely come to an end when there was no place in it for Daniel Webster
This seehest tribute ever paid by one great orator to another--in the loftiest sense, a tribute of genius to genius Mr Hubbard told athered in Faneuil Hall to ratify the nomination of Harrison and Tyler soon after the adjourn National Convention in 1840 Edward Everett presided; and aifted Sargent S Prentiss of Mississippi The eloquence of the last named was a proverb in his day He had but recently delivered a speech in the House, vindicating his right to his seat as a Representative from Mississippi, which cast a spell over all who heard it, and which has coeneration as one of thesentence of this wondrous speech--a thousand times quoted--was: ”Deny her representation upon this floor; then, Mr Speaker, strike frolitters to the name of Mississippi--and leave only the stripe, fit eradation!”
Upon the conclusion of Prentiss's Faneuil Hall speech, just mentioned, amidst a tumult of applause such as even Faneuil Hall had rarely witnessed, Mr Everett, turning to Mr Webster, inquired: ”Did you ever hear the equal of that speech?” ”Never but once,” was the deep-toned reply, ”and then fro-tiiven a vivid description of the effect of the power of Mr Prentiss before the jury in the prosecution of a noted highwayman and murderer in that State: