Biography

Heroes of the Faith: Daniel Webster

Aug 14, 2024

“Obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men.” ~ Ephesians 6:5-7

Daniel Webster: Wholehearted Service to the King | 1782-1852

Daniel Webster, along with Patrick Henry, is often considered one of America’s greatest orators, and yet few today know his name. He did not write the dictionary (that was Noah Webster) and he was not a perfect man (he struggled with pride, tremendous personal loss, and a love of creature comforts), but he left an extraordinary legacy as a statesman and a Christian.

Webster credited his parents with “instilling…an early love” of Christianity that shaped his life. His mother was considered a brilliant woman in her own right and recognized great potential in her son, whom she home educated until he was accepted into Dartmouth College at age 15. Her hopes were not disappointed, and by the age of 23, young Webster was a renowned attorney who was quickly making a name for himself. He married the love of his life, Grace Fletcher, and together they had 5 children. Grace was known as devoted wife and mother who was even more devoted to her faith, and in many ways, she helped shape her husband into the man he became, even as she battled the cancer that claimed her life in 1828. Webster, still practicing law at the highest levels and serving as a statesman, devoted himself to his family the wake of her loss. He eventually remarried, but tragedy followed his family, and his brother and four of his five children perished in the years that followed.

Despite these and other hardships, Webster held fast to his faith and to the calling the Lord had on his life. He served 5 terms in the US House of Representatives, 2 terms in the US Senate, and was also appointed as Secretary of State under multiple presidents. In this role, he employed diplomacy to prevent a third war with Great Britan and won a new era of peace for the nation. While serving in these roles, he simultaneously built an incredible legal practice. He personally argued more than 200 cases before the Supreme Court of the United States, including several landmark cases that helped define limits on the constitutional power of the federal government. It has been said that no one lawyer has had a greater effect on the United States Supreme Court than Webster. What makes him even more unusual is that this Supreme Court practice and his other legal work was done while he was serving the federal legislature. It was not unusual for Webster to give an impassioned floor speech in Congress and argue a case at the Supreme Court in the same day. Crowds followed the famous orator, hoping to learn from “the Defender of the Constitution”.

Webster selflessly wielded his legendary oratorical influence to support the cause of national unity during the tumultuous and polarizing time leading up to the Civil War. While his positions on some issues can be difficult for modern readers to understand, through lengthy debates, he advocated for “Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!” This was in the face of challenges like attempted nullification of laws passed by Congress, threats of secession, and escalating attempts to justify violence. The very survival of our Constitutional Republic hung in the balance, and even after his death, his words and work helped hold the Union together. In his book, Profiles in Courage, John F. Kennedy celebrated Webster’s unique “ability to make alive and supreme the latent sense of oneness, of union, that all Americans felt but few could express.” Webster consistently and relentlessly employed his voice to advocated for individual responsibility, respect for the rule of law, a return to the principles of the Word of God, respect for the sacrifice of generations before who had secured our liberty, and the preservation of the Constitution. The legacy of his statesmanship and legal work continue to impact our nation in positive ways.

Lessons From Webster’s Life:

Daniel Webster served his nation with distinction, but above all else, he served the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. In seasons of extraordinary grief and loss and in times of great trial, answering that call to serve Christ first was his constant hope and aim. The times we live in today are no less trying than Webster’s, and the truth he pointed to then remains true now. He knew the only hope for healing brokenness in society was the Savior who heals individual souls. Though the great statesman and orator commanded political power, fame, and many brilliant abilities, he never sought human answers to divine problems. Webster didn’t try to pioneer a government program, employ diplomacy, or inspire people to somehow be their best selves. Rather, time and time again, the famed “Defender of the Constitution” humbly shared his own testimony as proof of “the utter inability of a human being to work out his own salvation without the constant aids of the spirit of grace” and the life-giving Word of God. He tenaciously beseeched others to embrace the individual responsibility to faithfully serve Christ as Lord and the duty to carry the truth of the Word of God to every sector of society. Today, if we wish to our societies and nations restored, we must do the same.

Daniel Webster in His Own Words:

“The most important thought that ever occupied my mind is that of my individual responsibility to God.”

“If we abide by the principles taught in the Bible, our country will go on prospering and to prosper, but if we and our country reject religious instruction and authority, violate the rules of eternal justice, trifle with the injunctions of morality, and recklessly destroy the political constitution which holds us together, no man can tell how sudden a catastrophe may overwhelm us and bury all our glory in profound obscurity.”

“Our ancestors established their system of government on morality and religious sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot safely be trusted on any other foundation than religious principle, nor any government be secure which is not supported by moral habits…. Whatever makes men good Christians, makes them good citizens. Our fathers were brought here by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions. Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable. “

“The Bible is a book of faith, and a book of doctrine, and a book of religion, of special revelation from God; but it is also a book which teaches man his own individual responsibility, his own dignity, and his equality with his fellow – man.”

“If religious books are not widely circulated among the masses in this country, I do not know what is going to become of us as a nation. If truth be not diffused, then error will be. If God and His Word are not known and received, the devil and his works will gain the ascendency. If the evangelical volume does not reach every hamlet, the pages of a corrupt and licentious literature will. If the power of the gospel is not felt throughout the length and breadth of this land, anarchy and misrule, degradation and misery, corruption and darkness will reign without mitigation or end.”

“God grants liberty only to those who love it and are always ready to guard and defend it. Let our object be our country. And, by the blessing of God, may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration forever!”

“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution of your country and the government established under it. Leave evils which exist in some parts of the country, but which are beyond your control, to the all-wise direction of an over-ruling Providence. Perform those duties which are present, plain and positive. Respect the laws of your country.”

“The contest for ages has been to rescue liberty from the grasp of executive power.”

“Justice is the great interest of man on earth. It is a ligament which holds

civilized beings and civilized nations together.”

“The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good, and difficult for them to do evil.”

“Keep cool; anger is not an argument.”

“Good intentions will always be pleaded, for every assumption of power; but they cannot justify it … It is hardly too strong to say, that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intention, real or pretended.”

“If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it; if we rear temples, they will crumble to dust; but if we work upon men’s immortal minds, if we impress on them with high principles, the just fear of God and love tor their fellow-men, we engrave on those tables something which no time can efface, and which will righten and brighten to all eternity.”

“If we and our posterity shall be true to the Christian religion, if we and they shall live always in the fear of God and shall respect his commandments, if we and they shall maintain just and moral sentiments and such conscientious convictions of duty as shall control the heart and life, we may have the highest hopes of the future fortunes of our country. Our country will go on prospering.”