DANIEL WEBSTER: The Man and His Time
By Robert V. Remini
Norton, 796 pages, $39.95
With numerous books on Jacksonian America to his credit, including massive biographies of Andrew Jackson and Henry Clay, Robert V. Remini stands as our premier political historian of the era. His latest offering, “Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time,” can take its rightful place alongside these distinguished works.
Webster spent 40 years serving the public in many capacities, including legislator, diplomat and secretary of state, the office in which he made his most lasting contributions. The only individual to hold that post under three presidents, his skillful diplomacy secured U.S. borders and relations with Great Britain and opened Japan and South America to commerce. A lifelong presidential hopeful, he passed up his only chance to achieve his goal by refusing to run for what he considered the inferior office of vice president with William Henry Harrison.
The best testimony to Webster’s legacy lies in the many landmark events with which his surname is linked–the Webster-Hayne Debate, the Webster-Ashburton Treaty, the Webster-Crampton Convention. His nicknames indicate his place in the early American pantheon of leaders–“the Great Orator,” “Defender of the Constitution,” “the Godlike Daniel.” He achieved fame in his own day as the outstanding public speaker of his generation, using America’s brief history to articulate a nationalist vision of the future.
Webster earned other nicknames as well–“Black Dan,” “Prince of Traitors” and “Whore”–and was said by some to possess one of the finest minds “God ever let the Devil buy.” These epithets referred to a darker side of his personality and his career, marking him as a moody and cruel man, one who drank to excess and one whom persistent rumors labeled a libertine. This quality of dual personality repelled and attracted his contemporaries and still intrigues us today.
Remini’s great achievement lies in revealing both sides of this complicated man. A consummate researcher and historian, he meticulously narrates all the political events and ramifications of Webster’s long career, but he also unstintingly relates the more unsavory elements of the statesman’s personality and personal life. Webster’s story presents problems to a biographer, and Remini handles some of them well.
For instance, it is easy to convince readers of a person’s significance when he leaves behind stirring documents, such as the Declaration of Independence; dealing with a subject whose fame rests on oratory is much more difficult. How can an author convey the experience of listening to a three-hour speech by Daniel Webster to people accustomed to the constant stimulation and rapid sound bites of modern popular culture? How can he explain why congressmen wept and crowds swooned?
Remini gives serious attention to the content of Webster’s speeches but also uses vivid physical descriptions and eyewitness accounts to portray the power he held over a crowd. When Webster began speaking he stood still, his voice just low enough that his audience had to strain to hear. Beginning in a deliberate manner, his rhetoric built and so did his rhythm. His body moved from side to side, his right arm began to swing, he ” `scintillated at every step.’ ” His large, expressive eyes seemed as “black as death,” and his voice like an African lion, a resemblance enhanced by his massive, shaggy head and barrel-chested body. The force of his intellect thus displayed was such that one audience member thought ” `(t)hree or four times (that) my temples would burst with the gush of blood.’ ” The whole effect, remarked another, was ” `like Vulcan in his armory forging thoughts for the Gods!’ “
Many “life-and-times” studies stint on the “times” surrounding the central personality, providing only the sketchiest context in which to understand the subject’s life and achievements. In this arena, Remini succeeds impressively. This magisterial work covers huge chunks of U.S. history, through which the reader enjoys the company of an extraordinary guide in Webster.
Unfortunately, the weakness of this work lies at the very core–the “life” aspect–in the character of Daniel Webster. In his introduction, Remini charmingly confesses that he did not like Webster as much as he did Jackson and Clay. As the narrative unfolds, it becomes clear why that might be. Clay possessed weaknesses that affected only himself and his family–gambling and drinking–but Webster’s fault lay in his intolerance of anyone he thought inferior to himself. Because of his arrogance and elitism, this encompassed a substantial group of people. Clay might have been weak, but Webster was mean. Even as he acknowledges Webster’s flaws, Remini does not really let them color his positive assessment of the statesman’s contributions or his legacy.
Though Remini steadfastly illustrates and measures Webster’s clay feet, he still lacks some critical distance. Webster’s most celebrated achievements were the well-attended public speeches given on patriotic occasions, opportunities, as he saw it, to win fame and further his career. These patriotic paeans, invoking images of brave settlers and freedom-loving Pilgrims, ring hollow to modern Americans. They embody sentiments and represent an application of history that have proved only rarely useful and almost never true. Remini seems to accept the content of Webster’s speeches at face value, noting that they supplied American schoolchildren with a jingoistic version of history without wondering if that was a good thing.
Even when he conscientiously notes Webster’s more glaring offenses, Remini does not necessarily connect them into a coherent picture. For instance, he tells us that when it came to the big moral issue of his time–slavery–Webster shilly-shallied, acknowledging the institution’s evils but preferring to leave the matter in God’s hands. Remini treats this stand as regrettable, but understandable. But he also tells us that Webster, a strong advocate of economic growth through federal action, took money from rich men to enter public office and work for their interests. Remini does not analyze the motives of this man who, when it came to the horrors of slavery, was willing to cede human fate to the deity but nonetheless preferred to direct the free market personally. A rigorous and thorough historian, Remini narrates the facts of Webster’s life, taking them on their own terms, without the analysis–the use of hindsight and insight–we might expect.
Despite these caveats, the book is now our best biography of this frustrating, slippery personality and a singular achievement. Anyone who has an interest in antebellum America, or who ponders the effect of a single life on the development of a nation, must read “Daniel Webster: A Man and His Time.”
