WEBSTER, Daniel, American statesman: b. Salisbury (now Franklin), N. H., 18 Jan. 1782; d. Marshfield, Mass., 24 Oct. 1852. He was the son of • New Hampshirejudge and farmer and brother to a large family of boys and girls, all of wham worked and sacrificed in favor of Daniel whose health was apparently not robust. After rather meagre preparation be attended Exeter Academy a year. Thence be went to Dartmouth College where he was grad uated in 1801 with good if not distinguished standing. He loved to study English and clas sical literature; he liked self-indulgence; and he was already an orator for Fourth of July occasions. More than once he had shown a disregard to that rigid honesty in little money matters which was later to become such a dia tressing trait of his character.
From Dartmouth to the farm of the hard pressed father was not a congenial move for a young man so filled with ambition to play a role in the great world outside; but the road to the vaguely set himself was not easy to d He studied law a while in the office of a friendly lawyer nearby but inclined rather to general reading and to fishing than to rigid self -iphne. Next he turned to teaching school in the town of Fryeburg, Me in the hi of winning ready money, so much needed I. Webster family, now that another son was sent to Dartmouth. After one session at Frye he returned to his native town of resumed the study of law in earnest, Esekiel, tie brother who had been at Dartmouth, now took a school in Boston and Daniel followed him to the New England metropolis. Here he studied law under the distinguished Christopher Gott, a little later governor of Massachusetts, and always a prince of the old New England culture. Gore was certainly not of the type of Ezekiel Vs'ebater, the farmer judge of New Hampshire, but he was the bitter enemy of that 'Mr. Jefferson, the atheist Virginian' who had broken the power forever of the Federalists of New England. Webster absorbed the politics of localism and provincial superiority which a link later threatened to ruin a great career.
Admitted to the Boston bar on the recom mendation of Gore himself in March 1805, Weimer. a little past his 23d birthday, returned his native State and there, in the town of Bosea•ese began the practice of his profession. He was quickly successful; but realizing that a Lager sphere tor the display of his talents was necessary, he removed to the important mercial town of Portsmouth in the year 1807. Here he came into real New Eng- land, with men who went down to the sea in and brought back rich narvests from the of Newfoundland, from the marts of Earupe and even from the strange cities of fauna. He met and competed with great yers. like Jeremiah Mason and William Plumcr, sad be learned to think in generous figures, not ia die niggardly shillings and pence of his hood. For five years he learned from these ONO and from renewed study of the great ii low authorities. Webster received or gave hontelf a broad and deep training, whereas his Pm rival in life. Henry Clay. had little or no totiong Moreover he earned large fees in those exasperating years of non-importation resa and embargoes, procured for himself a good town house and went back to his native oseetryside and married Miss Grace Fletcher, dm daughter of the minister at Hopkinton. He spoke against the government on every suitable cesasion; learned to write great orations and to enure barge audiences; and shaped barbed Mims again .4t James Madison and his etate Virginians who monopolized all the great aims of the nation. He learned rather better tire tiatsn-y lies recorded the language of re liance aid secession. How could he do other vier it a community whose people were de lighted with young \Villiam Cullen Bryant's tint poem. •The Embargo.° Thus trained, detiply resentful at the policy of the national sosernment in going to war with England a mond time and ambitious to meet the enemy face to face, he became a candidate for a seat at the National House of Representatives, was diced oil a most flattering vote and took his seat is May 1813.