Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845Webster, Daniel
General
Select Speeches of Daniel Webster, 1817-1845
Webster, Daniel
Speeches, addresses, etc., American
This most mournful and lamentable event has called together the whole
Bar of Suffolk, and all connected with the courts of law or the
profession. It has brought you, Mr. Chief Justice, and your associates
of the Bench of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, into the midst of
us; and you have done us the honor, out of respect to the occasion, to
consent to preside over us, while we deliberate on what is due, as well
to our own afflicted and smitten feelings, as to the exalted character
and eminent distinction of the deceased judge. The occasion has drawn
from his retirement, also, that venerable man, whom we all so much
respect and honor, (Judge Davis,) who was, for thirty years, the
associate of the deceased upon the same Bench. It has called hither
another judicial personage, now in retirement, (Judge Putnam,) but long
an ornament of that Bench of which you are now the head, and whose
marked good fortune it is to have been the professional teacher of Mr.
Justice Story, and the director of his early studies. He also is
present to whom this blow comes near; I mean, the learned judge (Judge
Sprague) from whose side it has struck away a friend and a highly
venerated official associate. The members of the Law School at
Cambridge, to which the deceased was so much attached, and who returned
that attachment with all the ingenuousness and enthusiasm of educated
and ardent youthful minds, are here also, to manifest their sense of
their own severe deprivation, as well as their admiration of the bright
and shining professional example which they have so loved to
contemplate,--an example, let me say to them, and let me say to all, as
a solace in the midst of their sorrows, which death hath not touched
and which time cannot obscure.
Mr. Chief Justice, one sentiment pervades us all. It is that of the
most profound and penetrating grief, mixed, nevertheless, with an
assured conviction, that the great man whom we deplore is yet with us
and in the midst of us. He hath not wholly died. He lives in the
affections of friends and kindred, and in the high regard of the
community. He lives in our remembrance of his social virtues, his warm
and steady friendships, and the vivacity and richness of his
conversation. He lives, and will live still more permanently, by his
words of written wisdom, by the results of his vast researches and
attainments, by his imperishable legal judgments, and by those
juridical disquisitions which have stamped his name, all over the
civilized world, with the character of a commanding authority. "Vivit,
enim, vivetque semper; atque etiam latius in memoria hominum et sermone
versabitur, postquam ab oculis recessit."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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