[20] From "The Hall of Fame." Published by G.P. Putnam's Sons, New York,
1901.

* * * * *

THE CHARACTER OF WASHINGTON

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

_A Speech Delivered at a Public Dinner, Washington, February 22, 1832_

_The Power of the Name of Washington_

We are met to testify our regard for him whose name is intimately
blended with whatever belongs most essentially to the prosperity, the
liberty, the free institutions, and the renown of our country;. That
name was of power to rally a nation, in the hour of thick-thronging
public disasters and calamities; that name shone, amid the storm of war,
a beacon light, to cheer and guide the country's friends; it flamed,
too, like a meteor, to repel her foes. That name, in the days of peace,
was a lodestone, attracting to itself a whole people's confidence, a
whole people's love, and the whole world's respect. That name,
descending with all time, spreading over the whole earth, and uttered in
all the languages belonging to the tribes and races of men, will forever
be pronounced with affectionate gratitude by everyone in whose breast
there shall arise an aspiration for human rights and human liberty.

We perform this grateful duty, Gentlemen, at the expiration of a hundred
years from his birth, near the place so cherished and beloved by him,
where his dust now reposes, and in the capital which bears his own