what reason there was on either side was submerged in the lies and libels, in the calumnies and caricatures, in the defamations and execrations, which accompanied the citation of facts and the affirmation of principles.  Webster, during all this time, was selected as a shining mark, at which every puny writer or speaker who opposed him hurled his small or large contribution of verbal rotten eggs; and yet Webster was almost the only Whig statesman who preserved sanity of understanding during the whole progress of that political riot, in which the passions of men became the masters of their understandings.  Pious Whig fathers, who worshipped the “godlike Daniel,” went almost to the extent of teaching their children to curse Jackson in their prayers; equally pious Democratic fathers brought up their sons and daughters to anathematize the fiend-like Daniel as the enemy of human rights; and yet, in reading Webster’s speeches, covering the whole space between 1832 and 1836, we can hardly find a statement which an historian of our day would not admit as a candid generalization of facts, or an argument which would not stand the test of logical examination.  Such an historian might entirely disagree with the opinions of Webster; but he would certainly award to him the praise of being an honest reasoner and an honest rhetorician, in a time when reason was used merely as a tool of party passion, and when rhetoric rushed madly into the worst excesses of rhodomontade.

It is also to be said that Webster rarely indulged in personalities.  When we consider how great were his powers of sarcasm and invective, how constant were the provocations to exercise them furnished by his political enemies, and how atrociously and meanly allusions to his private affairs were brought into discussions which should have been confined to refuting his reasoning, his moderation in this matter is to be ranked as a great virtue.  He could not take a glass of wine without the trivial fact being announced all over the country as indisputable proof that he was an habitual drunkard, though the most remarkable characteristic of his speeches is their temperance,—­their “total abstinence” from all the intoxicating moral and mental “drinks” which confuse the understanding and mislead the conscience.  He could not borrow money on his note of hand, like any other citizen, without the circumstance being trumpeted abroad as incontrovertible evidence that Nick Biddle had paid him that sum to defend his diabolical Bank in the Senate of the United States.  The plain fact that his speeches were confined strictly to the exposition and defence of sound opinions on trade and finance, and that it was difficult to answer them, only confirmed his opponents in the conviction that old Nick was at the bottom of it all.  His great intellect was admitted; but on the high, broad brow, which was its manifestation to the eye, his enemies pasted the words, “To be let,” or, “For sale.”  The more impersonal he became in