Of course, this was a most remarkable thing for an eight-year-old boy to do, but the boy was himself remarkable. He spent much of his time poring over books. They were few in number but of good quality, and he read them over and over again until they became a part of himself. It gave him keen pleasure to memorize fine poems and also noble selections from the Bible, for he learned easily and remembered well what he learned. In this way he stored his mind with the highest kind of truth. When he was fourteen his father sent him to Phillips Exeter Academy. The boys he met there were mostly from homes of wealth and culture. Some of them were rude and laughed at Daniel's plain dress and country manners. Of course, the poor boy, whose health was not robust and who was by nature shy and independent, found such treatment hard to bear. But he studied well and soon commanded respect because of his good work. After leaving this school he studied for six months under a private tutor, and at the age of fifteen he was prepared to enter Dartmouth College. Although he proved himself to be a youth of unusual mental power, he did not take high rank in scholarship. But he continued to read widely and thoughtfully and stored up much valuable knowledge, which later he used with clearness and force in conversation and debate. After being graduated from college Daniel taught for a year and earned money enough to help pay his brother's college expenses. The following year he studied law and in due time was admitted to the bar. As a lawyer he was very successful, his income sometimes amounting to twenty thousand dollars in a single year. In those days that was a very large sum. But he could not manage his money affairs well and, no matter how large his income, he was always in debt. This unfortunate state of affairs was owing to a reckless extravagance, which he displayed in many ways. Indeed, Webster was a man of such large ideas that of necessity he did all things on a large scale. It was vastness that appealed to him. And this ruling force in his nature explains his eagerness to keep the Union whole and supreme over the States. This we shall soon clearly see. SLAVERY AND THE TARIFF Having taken this glimpse of our three heroes, let us see how the great events of their time were largely moulded by their influence. All of these events, as we are soon to learn, had a direct bearing on slavery, and that was the great question of the day. Up to the Revolution there was slavery in all the thirteen colonies. Some of them wished to get rid of it; but England, the mother country, would not allow them to do so, because she profited by the trade in slaves. After the Revolution, however, when the States were free to do as they pleased about slavery, some put an end to it on their own soil, and in time Pennsylvania and the States to the north and east of it became free States.