be now and forever, one and inseparable.

The Northern statesman, Daniel Webster, was probably the greatest
political genius our country has produced. He was born in New Hampshire,
in 1782, and was seven years old when his father gave him a copy of the
newly-adopted Constitution, which he soon committed to memory. His
father belonged to the farmer class, who read by night and brooded upon
his reading by day. In an era of privation for the colonists, by stern
denial he put his son through Phillips Exeter Academy and Dartmouth
College. While still a young man, Daniel Webster leaped into fame by a
single argument before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, and became
the competitor of jurists like Rufus Choate. His orations on "Bunker
Hill Monument," the "Landing of the Pilgrim Fathers," the "Death of
Adams and Jefferson," are among the really sublime passages in the
history of eloquence. In the Girard College case Webster established the
point that Christianity is a part of the common law of the land.
Criminal lawyers quote Webster's argument in the great Knapp murder
trial, that the voice of conscience is the voice of God, as the world's
best statement of the moral imperative, and the automatic judgment seat
God has set up in the city of man's soul.

Even from the physical view-point he deserved his epithet, "the godlike
Daniel." Not so tall as Calhoun or Clay, he was more solidly built than
either of the Southern orators. His head was so large and beautiful,
that Crawford, the sculptor, thought Webster his ideal model for a
statue of Jupiter. His skin was a deep bronze and copper hue, but when
excited his face became luminous, and translucent as a lamp of
alabaster. His opponents say that Webster had the finest vocal
instrument of his generation, and that he was a master of all possible
effects through speech. His voice was mellow and sweet, with an