He resumed the study of law in September, 1802, and in the spring of 1805 was admitted to the bar at Boston. He opened an office at Boscawen, N. H., but in September, 1807, moved to Portsmouth, where he at once rose to the head of his profession, and for nine successive years had a large though not very lucrative practice.

In 1808 he was married to Miss Grace Fletcher of Hopkinton, N. H.

In November, 1812, he was elected a member of the National House of Representatives, where his great talents were at once recognized; he was reëlected in 1814. From 1823 until his death in 1852, with the exception of about two years, he was constantly in public life, as congressman, senator, and secretary of state.

In 1816 he moved to Boston, and soon took a commanding position in his profession of the law. He had a choice of the best business of the whole country. He distinguished himself especially in the realm of Constitutional Law, by which the rights of States and individuals under the Constitution were defined. In 1818 he argued the famous Dartmouth College case, and secured a decision declaring unconstitutional, on the ground of impairing the obligation of a contract, an act of the New Hampshire Legislature altering the charter of the college. He was thereafter retained in almost every important case argued before the Supreme Court at Washington.

On December 22, 1820, the two hundredth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, he delivered his famous Plymouth Oration, the first of a series of noble, patriotic addresses which showed him to be the greatest orator America ever produced. On June 17, 1825, he delivered an oration at the laying of the corner-stone of the Bunker Hill Monument, and on August 2, 1826, his eulogy on the ExPresidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, who died within a few hours of each other, on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. In

1830, he made, in the United States Senate, his celebrated Reply to Hayne, in which he repelled insinuations against New England, and argued against the right of nullification.

In 1850 he delivered in the Senate Chamber, at Washington, what is known as his Seventh of March Speech. Henry Cabot Lodge says, in his Life of Webster, that at this time Webster's place was at the head of a new party based on the principles which he had himself formulated against the extension of slavery; that he did not change his party, and therefore had to change his opinions. In the Seventh of March Speech, he spoke in favor of enforcing the Fugitive Slave Law, and against the Wilmot Proviso, by which slavery was to be excluded from all territory thereafter acquired. He depicted at length the grievances of the South, and said but little about those of the North. Mr. George T. Curtis, in his Biography, says that a great majority of Webster's constituents, if not of the whole North, disapproved of this speech. The judgment of many was summed up in Whittier's great poem, Ichabod. In connection with this should be read the same poet's verses, The Lost Occasion. Both of these poems refer to Webster.

Webster as an orator had no equal, and as a lawyer no superior. His reputation as a statesman, though for the most part grand and glorious, was, in the eyes of many, dimmed by his change of base on the slavery question. His personal appearance was very remarkable; he had a swarthy complexion and straight black hair; his head was large and of noble shape, with a broad and lofty brow; his features were finely cut and full of massive strength, and his eyes were dark and deep set. Mr. Lodge says, "There is no man in all history who came into the world so equipped physically for speech."

Webster died at Marshfield, Mass., October 24, 1852, while holding the office of secretary of state under Presi dent Fillmore.

THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT.

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED AT THE LAYING OF THE CORNER STONE OF THE BUNKER HILL MONUMENT AT CHARLESTOWN, MASS., ON THE 17TH OF JUNE, 1825.

[As early as 1776, some steps were taken toward the commemoration of the Battle of Bunker Hill and the fall of General Warren, who was buried upon the hill the day after the action. The Massachusetts Lodge of Masons, over which Warren had presided, applied to the provisional government of Massachusetts for permission to take up his remains and to bury them with the usual solemnities. The council granted this request, on condition that it should be carried into effect in such a manner that the government of the Colony might have an opportunity to erect a monument to his memory. A funeral procession was had, and a eulogy on General Warren was delivered by Perez Morton, but no measures were taken toward building a monument.

A resolution was adopted by the Congress of the United States on the 8th of April, 1777, directing that monuments should be erected to the memory of General Warren, in Boston, and of General Mercer, at Fredericksburg; but this resolution has remained to the present time unexecuted.

On the 11th of November, 1794, a committee was appointed by King Solomon's Lodge, at Charlestown,1 to take measures for the erection of a monument to the memory of General Joseph Warren, at the expense of the lodge. This resolution was promptly carried into effect. The land for

1 General Warren, at the time of his decease, was Grand Master of the Masonic Lodges in America.

this purpose was presented to the lodge by the Hon. James Russell, of Charlestown, and it was dedicated with appropriate ceremonies on the 2d of December, 1794. It was a wooden pillar of the Tuscan order, eighteen feet in height, raised on a pedestal eight feet square, and of an elevation of ten feet from the ground. The pillar was surmounted by a gilt urn. An appropriate inscription was placed on the south side of the pedestal.

In February, 1818, a committee of the legislature of Massachusetts was appointed to consider the expediency of building a monument of American marble to the memory of General Warren, but this proposal was not carried into effect.

As the half-century from the date of the battle drew toward a close, a stronger feeling of the duty of commemorating it began to be awakened in the community. Among those who from the first manifested the greatest interest in the subject was the late William Tudor, Esq. He expressed the wish, in a letter still preserved, to see upon the battleground "the noblest monument in the world," and he was so ardent and persevering in urging the project, that it has been stated that he first conceived the idea of it. The steps taken in execution of the project, from the earliest private conferences among the gentlemen first engaged in it to its final completion, are accurately sketched by Mr. Richard Frothingham, Jr., in his valuable History of the Siege of Boston. All the material facts contained in this note are derived from his chapter on the Bunker Hill Monument. After giving an account of the organization of the society, the measures adopted for the collection of funds, and the deliberations on the form of the monument, Mr. Frothingham proceeds as follows:

"It was at this stage of the enterprise that the directors proposed to lay the corner-stone of the monument, and ground was broken (June 7th) for this purpose. As a mark of respect to the liberality and patriotism of King

Solomon's Lodge, they invited the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts to perform the ceremony. They also invited General Lafayette to accompany the President of the Association, Hon. Daniel Webster, and assist in it.

"This celebration was unequalled in magnificence by anything of the kind that had been seen in New England. The morning proved propitious. The air was cool, the sky was clear, and timely showers the previous day had brightened the vesture of nature into its loveliest hue. Delighted thousands flocked into Boston to bear a part in the proceedings, or to witness the spectacle. At about ten o'clock a procession moved from the State House towards Bunker Hill. The military, in their fine uniforms, formed the van. About two hundred veterans of the Revolution, of whom forty were survivors of the battle, rode in barouches next to the escort. These venerable men, the relics of a past generation, with emaciated frames, tottering limbs, and trembling voices, constituted a touching spectacle. Some wore, as honorable decorations, their old fighting equipments, and some bore the scars of still more honorable wounds. Glistening eyes constituted their answer to the enthusiastic cheers of the grateful multitudes who lined their pathway and cheered their progress. To this patriot band succeeded the Bunker Hill Monument Association. Then the Masonic fraternity, in their splendid regalia, thousands in number. Then Lafayette, continually welcomed by tokens of love and gratitude, and the invited guests. Then a long array of societies, with their various badges and banners. It was a splendid procession, and of such length that the front nearly reached Charlestown Bridge ere the rear had left Boston Common. It proceeded to Breed's Hill, where the Grand Master of the Freemasons, the President of the Monument Association, and General Lafayette performed the ceremony of laying the corner-stone, in the presence of a vast concourse of people."