A Great American Orator: How 19th-Century Senator Daniel Webster Developed His Unique Gifts

“Godlike Daniel” adresses a crowd in front of the Revere House at Bowdoin Square in Boston, circa 1851. (Public Domain)

A contemporary, journalist Oliver Dyer, described Daniel Webster this way: “The head, the face, the whole presence of Webster, was kingly, majestic, god-like.”

That third description stuck. Others began referencing the senator and orator from New Hampshire as “Godlike Daniel.” His words could move the hearts of his listeners, and his vibrant voice often brought many in his audience to rhapsody and sometimes tears, but it was his appearance—his dark complexion, his luxuriant, wild hair, his eyes “like glowing coals”—that earned him his nickname.

Born in 1782 to Abigail and Ebenezer Webster, Daniel deeply loved both his parents. From his father in particular, who had served as an army officer during the American Revolution and who considered George Washington a personal hero, Daniel acquired an abiding love of his country and his native New Hampshire. From him he also gained a devotion to Scripture and an appreciation for the power of rhetoric. In addition to the farm, his father owned a tavern, and as a boy Daniel frequently recited poetry and scripture to the travelers and teamsters who paused there for food, rest, and drink.

Love of the Written Word

Daniel’s genius for reading and absorbing the written word became a lifelong tool for his success. According to Virginia Drew, Director of New Hampshire’s Statehouse Visitor Center, by the age of 9 Daniel had memorized the U.S. Constitution. When his father brought home a copy of Alexander Pope’s “An Essay on Man” (1733–34), Daniel later recollected, “I read, and reread, and then commenced again; nor did I give up the book till I could recite every word of it from beginning to end.”

When it became clear that Daniel would never flourish as a farmer, Ebenezer sent him to Phillips Exeter Academy in hopes that he might become a teacher. Here he did well academically but felt out of place, separated from his wealthier and more sophisticated peers by his country manners, his rough dress, and his poor training in classical languages. Ironically, the man who would one day dazzle the Senate and the nation with his oratory also found himself too frightened and disheartened to give the declamations customarily delivered by the students.

When Daniel was 15, his father deemed him ready to be a teacher and brought him back to the farm. There he might have stayed, but an acquaintance of the family, Reverend Samuel Wood, recognized the promise of this young man and offered to take him into his home and tutor him in preparation for college. When Ebenezer assented to the arrangement—the fee was one dollar a week—Daniel wept with joy and gratitude.

During his stay with Reverend Wood, Daniel again revealed his intelligence and talent for memorization. One day, for instance, the reverend caught his student slipping into the woods against orders to go hunting, and for his punishment Wood instructed him to memorize 100 lines from the ancient Roman poet Virgil by the following day. Daniel recited those lines, then asked his tutor if he’d like to hear another 100 lines as well.

A prominent American statesman and orator, Daniel Webster is famous for his electrifying speeches. (Public Domain)

Mastery of the Spoken Word

After that tutelage, Daniel entered Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. There, he excelled in the study of English literature, history, and rhetoric. His skill in debate and oratory soon raised him to the top of his class in that arena. So talented was he that in 1800, the 18-year-old was asked to give a Fourth of July speech to the citizens of Hanover. Here is a part of the address he delivered that day, an homage to the veterans of the American Revolution that electrified the crowd:

For us they fought! for us they bled! for us they conquered! Shall we, their descendants, now basely disgrace our lineage, and pusillanimously disclaim the legacy bequeathed to us? Shall we pronounce the sad valediction to freedom, and immolate liberty on the altars our fathers have raised to her? No! The response of a nation is, “No!” Let it be registered in the archives of Heaven!

After his graduation, Daniel returned home, “read the law,” and quickly made a reputation both for his legal work and his speaking abilities. Though New Hampshire elected him twice to serve in the U.S. House of Representatives, his career really took off when he moved to Boston. He argued more than 200 cases before the Supreme Court, served again in the House of Representatives, and then made his way into the Senate, where he, Henry Clay of Kentucky, and John C. Calhoun of South Carolina all sought, each in his own way, to preserve American liberties. In part because of these three men, many historians still regard these decades before the Civil War as the Senate’s “Golden Age of Oratory.”

In 1852, Webster fell from his horse and suffered a head trauma. A few months later, that injury and cirrhosis led to his death. Franklin Pierce, later 14th president of the United States, said of his friend afterward that New Hampshire “has given birth to the greatest man, far the greatest man, that was ever born on this continent, and I verily believe, on any continent.”

The principles and values Webster acquired in adolescence from books and from his father, the rhetorical skills he honed at a young age, his schoolboy hunger for the food that might feed his intellect, his fierce love of America: All of these attributes, combined with ambition and character, became the core of the man.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine.