Famous Lawyers In American History: Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster

1782–1852

By Harry Munsinger

Daniel Webster was born January 18, 1782, in Salisbury, New Hampshire, in a house his father built. His mother and sisters taught him to read at such an early age that he had no memory of being unable to read. Daniel enrolled in Phillips Academy and studied grammar, arithmetic, and writing. He developed the habit of reading for half an hour and then trying to recall important passages he had just read. Webster later said the habit helped him recall a case or fact during trial. In 1797, he lived with Dr. Samuel Wood, the minister of an adjoining town, where he received private tutoring in Latin to prepare for college.

After months of tutoring, Dr. Wood told Daniel he was ready to enter Dartmouth College, which required passing a test in English writing, translating English into Latin, and using basic arithmetic. Daniel did well in English writing but barely passed Latin and math. Nevertheless, Dartmouth College admitted Daniel due to Dr. Wood’s strong recommendation. At Dartmouth, Daniel studied Latin, Greek, English grammar, rhetoric, and critical thinking, and joined a debating society. When he graduated, he was the best speaker on campus. He earned good grades and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. When the trustees of Fryeburg Academy in Maine offered Daniel a job teaching, he accepted because he needed the money. The trustees were happy with Daniel’s work and offered to double his salary if he would stay for a second term.

Daniel, however, wanted to study law, so he began searching for an attorney to take him as an assistant. He approached Christopher Gore, one of Boston’s most prominent attorneys. At the end of the interview, Daniel asked Gore if he could become his clerk and study law. Gore replied that he only wanted to take on one or two clerks. Daniel took that response as a rejection and started to leave, but Gore said, “Wait, hang up your hat, go into the next room, and begin studying— you can stay.” Daniel worked in Gore’s law office for two years, studying cases, drafting contracts, and attending state supreme court sessions. Gore wrote a strong letter supporting Daniel and introduced him to judges of the Suffolk Court of Common Pleas. Based on Gore’s strong support, the judges admitted Daniel to the bar without his having to pass an examination.

Daniel established a law practice near his father’s farm in Boscawen, a small New England town, because his father was ill. Daniel wanted to be close during his father’s last years. He practiced law in Boscawen for two years before his father died. Daniel asked his brother to take over his law practice so he could move to Portsmouth and open an office. In Portsmouth, Daniel met and fell in love with Grace Fletcher. After establishing his law practice and becoming economically successful, Daniel asked Grace to marry him. Grace accepted, and the couple married on May 29, 1808, returned to Portsmouth, and bought a small house. Although Daniel’s earnings increased, he was constantly in debt from overspending. He became interested in politics and decided to run for the United States House of Representatives from New Hampshire.

Congressman Webster

Daniel Webster ran for a seat in the House of Representatives as a Federalist and won, even though Republican James Madison was elected to a second presidential term by winning the South and many Middle Atlantic states. When Webster entered Congress, the War of 1812 had been going on for a year, and it was a disaster. The British invaded America and were winning battles on land and sea. The American invasion of Canada failed, and the United States lost control of Lake Champlain. The English blockaded the entire eastern coast of America below New York City, hoping New England manufacturing states would secede from the Union, but the plan failed.

Webster’s political career helped him by attracting wealthier clients, and his law practice prospered. As Webster became more prominent in legal circles, he began practicing before the United States Supreme Court. He argued over two hundred cases before the Court. His first appearance before the Court was an admiralty case, The Grotius. He won the case for his client. Webster continued to enjoy victories for his clients. His speeches and bills in the House of Representatives forced President Madison to repeal the embargo against Great Britain so that Northern merchants could resume trading with England.

Webster prepared for reelection to the House on a platform of making peace with the British. Republicans attacked Webster as unpatriotic, but Webster won another term representing New Hampshire. The British invaded Washington, D.C., and burned the White House. When Congress and the President moved back to Washington, D.C., they discovered it would cost a fortune to rebuild burned buildings, and the war was not over. The United States Government faced a financial crisis; it needed to raise taxes and find a way to borrow money to continue the war. The National Bank charter had expired in 1811 and was not renewed because of opposition from Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. Because the country needed money to support the war, Republicans wanted to establish a new National Bank. However, the Republican bank bill failed in Congress, so Webster drafted his own bank bill, which passed with a large majority.

The Dartmouth College Case

At the end of his second term in the House, Webster moved his practice to Boston, where he accepted corporate and criminal cases and made a name for himself. Shortly after moving to Boston, Webster received a letter from the President of Dartmouth asking him to represent the college in a dispute with the State of New Hampshire—Trustees of Dartmouth College v. William H. Woodward. The case was an important one in American legal history because it clarified the Contract Clause of the United States Constitution.

The case began when the New Hampshire legislature passed a bill to take control of Dartmouth College, increase the number of trustees, and change its name to Dartmouth University. The original college trustees refused to recognize the legislature’s actions and sued in state court. Webster argued the case before the state’s superior court, where three Republican judges upheld the state legislature’s actions, ruling that Dartmouth College was a public institution subject to state regulation. The trustees immediately appealed to the United States Supreme Court. When the case came before the Supreme Court in March 1818, Webster spoke for four hours, laying out the issues that would make the case a classic one in American jurisprudence. He argued that the issues involved constitutional principles of private property and contract law because Reverend Wheelock had originally founded the school on his own land at his own expense, and therefore the college was private and not a public institution.

Webster’s argument that the original charter established Dartmouth College as a private corporation meant that the dispute involved a contract, and the contract clauses of the United States and New Hampshire Constitutions protected private contracts from government interference. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Dartmouth College Trustees, holding that the royal charter established a private corporation, and Dartmouth College was not subject to legislative regulation by New Hampshire. The Dartmouth College case limited the powers of a state to regulate private corporations, allowing entrepreneurs great latitude to grow their enterprises without state regulation.

McCulloch v. Maryland

Webster’s next United States Supreme Court case—McCulloch v. Maryland concerned the legality of the Second Bank of the United States. The case began in 1819 when Maryland imposed a tax on notes issued by the Second Bank of the United States. McCulloch, manager of the Maryland branch of the Second Bank of the United States, refused to pay the tax and was convicted of violating state law. He appealed his conviction to the United States Supreme Court.

Webster represented McCulloch and raised two issues before the Court: does the federal government have the power to charter a national bank, and does a state have the power to tax a federal bank? The Court held that even though Article 8 of the Constitution does not explicitly give the federal government power to charter a national bank, it gives Congress “all necessary and proper” powers to carry out its express powers; thus, establishing a national bank is legal under the United States Constitution. Maryland argued that even if the national bank is legal, the state still had the power to tax any entity within its borders. The Court disagreed, explaining that the power to tax is the power to destroy, so states have no authority to tax a national bank because that would destroy the supremacy of the federal government.

The Great Steamboat Case

Webster’s next case involved the regulation of interstate commerce. Gibbons v. Ogden, decided in 1824, stood for the doctrine that Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce includes the right to regulate navigation on United States waterways. Gibbons and Ogden were partners in a steamboat venture moving passengers between New York and New Jersey. They disagreed about business matters, and Gibbons established a competing steamboat company. Ogden sued Gibbons in state court and won an injunction against the new company. Webster appealed the judgment to the United States Supreme Court and raised two issues: does Congress have the power to regulate navigation, and can the federal government regulate navigation within the waterways of New York?

Webster argued that federal authority to regulate interstate commerce is comprehensive, and a state court cannot overrule the federal government’s authority because of the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution. The Supreme Court reasoned that a restricted reading of the United States Constitution would cripple the federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce, and that Article 1 of the United States Constitution gives Congress broad powers to regulate interstate commerce, including navigation on state waterways. The Court explained that the federal government can regulate interstate commerce wherever commerce exists.

Senator Webster

When Webster returned to Massachusetts, his friends suggested that he run for the United States Senate. Although Webster thought running for senator was premature because Andrew Jackson would likely defeat President John Quincy Adams, he kept his options open by working to elect Adams to another term. In 1827, the Massachusetts legislature elected Webster as a Senator from Massachusetts because of his strong support for Adams, who eventually lost the election of 1828 to Jackson. Following his election to the Senate, Webster spent his summer at the Massachusetts shore with his wife Grace because she had been ill for the past year. Webster wanted Grace to recover before returning to Washington.

In November, the family left for Washington and ran into bad weather. Grace became ill. The family stopped in New York where a surgeon told Webster that Grace would not likely survive because she had developed a cancerous tumor. Grace died on January 21, 1828. Upon arrival in Washington, Webster had difficulty concentrating because he was depressed by Grace’s death. After a few weeks, his mood began to improve, and he argued in favor of a tariff bill to protect American infant industries from foreign competition.

Webster soon began seeing Sarah Goodridge, a miniaturist who had painted his portrait. Rumors of Webster’s sexual involvement with Goodridge circulated throughout Washington, and his enemies accused him of being a drunk and having a black son. To protect his reputation, Webster married Caroline LeRoy, second daughter of Herman LeRoy, a wealthy New York merchant, approximately two years after Grace died.

The Webster-Hayne Debate

Webster decided to debate Senator Hayne in an effort to raise his political profile. Webster began the debate by asking whether public land sales should be a source of revenue for the federal government or sold at a discount to attract settlers to the Western territories. Webster favored selling public lands at affordable prices, but his hidden agenda was to argue against slavery and the right of a state to secede from the Union. He wanted to run for President by attacking slavery, which was a popular position in New England. Webster reminded his listeners that the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 forbade introducing slavery into land northwest of the Ohio River. By raising the issue of slavery, Webster could discuss a popular issue in New England that was bound to make him an attractive candidate.

Hayne argued that slavery was permissible because states retained all rights not specifically granted to the federal government in the United States Constitution, and the system benefitted enslaved people because they were supported and provided for. Hayne maintained that the issue of states’ rights was not a threat to the Union but a way to preserve it. Webster argued that slavery is inherently evil, but slave-holding states must abolish slavery themselves because the federal government lacked authority to emancipate enslaved people. Webster’s speech was well received among northern states but not in the southern states.

The National Bank Issue

Nicholas Biddle, president of the Second Bank of the United States, wanted the bank’s charter renewed immediately because he believed Jackson would not oppose the bank during a presidential campaign. Webster pushed the bank bill through the Senate, arguing that the Second Bank of the United States should be re-chartered because it had established American finances on sound footing and supported American manufacturing. After six months of intense debate, the bank bill passed, but Jackson vetoed it. Webster warned that if the bank closed, outstanding loans would be due and cause serious financial distress to the country, but the Senate was unable to override Jackson’s veto.

Charles River Bridge Case

In 1828, Massachusetts chartered a company to build a new bridge parallel to the original Charles River bridge and authorized the bridge company to charge tolls until it recouped construction costs. Investors in the original bridge hired Webster to challenge the legality of building a competing bridge. Webster argued that the original charter was a property right the government could not abridge without compensation. However, Webster faced a hostile Supreme Court, because Jackson had nominated, and the Senate had confirmed, several Republican Justices during his prior term.

Because of the shift in political attitude on the Court, Webster urged his clients to compromise, but they refused, so he had to take the case before a hostile Supreme Court. Webster argued that issuing a new charter could not damage private property rights because that would violate the state constitution. The Supreme Court handed down a four-to-three decision, declaring that Webster’s clients did not have an exclusive right to build bridges over the Charles River, and that a second charter to build a competing bridge was constitutional. The Charles River Bridge case recognized that public rights are superior to private property rights—a victory for Jacksonian Democracy—but a loss for Webster, his clients, and business owners in general.

Missed Opportunity to be President

Webster passed up a golden opportunity to become President during Harrison’s second term, when he declined Harrison’s request to run as his Vice President in 1840. President Harrison died shortly after taking office, and Vice President Tyler became President. Webster must have anguished over seeing Tyler become President instead of him. After the 1840 election, President Harrison asked Webster to serve as Secretary of State. Webster accepted because he felt the office would help his campaign for President next time.

The Webster-Ashburton Treaty

As Secretary of State, Webster settled a boundary dispute with Canada. In the treaty that ended the American Revolution, Britain and America did not settle the boundary between the State of Maine and New Brunswick, Canada. When England selected a new prime minister, Webster saw a chance to resolve the issue because his friend Lord Ashburton was appointed to negotiate the boundary. Webster did not tell Ashburton that a Harvard University history professor had discovered a map in the French archives that strongly supported the British boundary claim. Webster ordered the State Department to buy the map and keep it secret.

To complicate negotiations, Congress was considering impeaching President Tyler and forcing Webster to resign. Ashburton wanted to settle the dispute before the political climate in America deteriorated. Britain and America agreed on a new boundary between Maine and New Brunswick in four days of intense negotiations. Webster acquired navigation rights on the St. John River for Maine lumbermen so that they could move logs to market more cheaply and efficiently, which pleased the people of Maine. The federal government paid Maine and Massachusetts $125,000 so that they would accept the new boundary. Webster argued that neither country had a clear claim to the disputed territory, and the only sensible path was compromise. After signing the treaty, Ashburton discovered the map supporting the British claim, but it was too late.

The Massachusetts legislature unanimously elected Webster to the United States Senate for another term, and he resigned as Secretary of State. Senator Webster set out for Washington to argue a few cases before the Supreme Court after celebrating his sixty-third birthday. The issue of slavery in newly admitted states was growing, and Webster wanted to resolve it in the next session of the Senate before the issue created a national crisis.

The 1850 Compromise

Before Webster took his seat in the Senate, President Tyler signed a bill admitting the Republic of Texas to the Union. Mexico immediately broke off diplomatic relations because it claimed Texas was part of Mexico, and the two countries went to war. The American army invaded Mexico and occupied Mexico City. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the Mexican War, and the United States obtained the territories of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah.16 Mexico agreed to accept the Rio Grande as its border with Texas in return for $15 million. President Polk submitted the treaty to the Senate for ratification. Webster voted against ratification because he was concerned about expanding slavery into new Southern states and felt the issue could destroy the Union if the United States did not establish a procedure for admitting slave and free states in a balanced fashion.

Southern senators were pushing to allow each state to decide for itself whether to be free or slave, but Webster wanted to admit California as a free state and defer the fate of the other territories. He did not want the country to go to war over the issue, though, because he believed good sense and Christian values would ultimately prevail, and the South would eventually free its enslaved people. Webster wanted to preserve the Union but felt the two sides needed to compromise. He argued that the nation faced dangerous times, and that the North had a constitutional duty to capture and return enslaved people who escaped from the South. He also listed grievances the Northern States had against the South, saying the North had expected slavery to gradually become less important, but that was not happening. Webster argued that both the North and South were to blame for the problem of slavery and should compromise rather than destroy the Union. Webster’s speech received wide praise because Webster sought to forge a compromise to save the Union, not abolish slavery.

A special Senate commission proposed a compromise to admit California as a free state, establish new territories in New Mexico and Utah without mentioning slavery, and adjust the Texas/New Mexico boundary. In the middle of negotiations over the compromise, President Taylor died, and Vice President Millard Fillmore became President. Fillmore asked Webster and Senator Henry Clay to continue working on a compromise and offered Webster the position of Secretary of State. Webster ignored the risk to his health by returning to Washington during the summer when diseases were rampant because he believed the office of Secretary of State was his ticket to winning the presidency. Clay’s compromise went down to defeat in the Senate as a single stand-alone bill, but Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois, chairman of the Committee on Territories, introduced a series of bills containing Clay’s compromise, and John C. Calhoun, Clay, and Webster joined forces to pass these small bills one at a time.

The compromise admitted California as a free state, abolished slave trade in Washington, D.C., organized the New Mexico territory, and introduced a fugitive slave bill requiring all states to return escaped enslaved people. By September 1850, Clay’s compromise was law, and civil war was avoided for a decade. Secretary of State Webster faced a threat by Texas to take up arms to enforce its territorial rights against New Mexico. He wrote a letter to Texas authorities saying the federal government would oppose any armed action against the New Mexico territory. That threat prompted Texas to wait until the Senate passed a Texas boundary bill to resolve the issue with New Mexico.

Exhausted from his labors at the State Department and his campaign for the Presidency, Webster left Washington for a vacation in Boston to regain his health. On the road, his carriage broke, and Webster fell, striking his head on the ground. Although a doctor treated and released Webster to continue his trip, Webster had suffered a subdural hematoma which caused dizziness for months. His health declined, and he could not campaign effectively for the presidency. He died on October 24, 1852, in Marshfield, Massachusetts.

Harry Munsinger has served on the San Antonio Bar Association’s publications committee for many years. During that time, he has been a frequent contributor to the San Antonio Lawyer magazine. Although Harry recently retired from law practice, he continues to be a frequent contributor to this magazine!