Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster was born on January 18, 1782, in Salisbury, New Hampshire. Graduating from Dartmouth College in 1801, he emerged as the foremost appellate advocate of his generation, winning landmark constitutional cases before Chief Justice John Marshall’s Supreme Court—including Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), McCulloch v. Maryland (1819), and Gibbons v. Ogden (1824)—which firmly established the supremacy of federal law and the sanctity of commercial contracts.

Serving in the House of Representatives and later representing Massachusetts in the United States Senate for nearly two decades, Webster was renowned for his thunderous voice, commanding presence, and peerless rhetoric. In January 1830, during the Nullification debate against South Carolina Senator Robert Y. Hayne, Webster delivered his immortal 'Second Reply to Hayne', concluding with the timeless rallying cry of American national unity: 'Liberty and Union, now and for ever, one and inseparable!'

Twice appointed United States Secretary of State (1841–1843 under William Henry Harrison and John Tyler, and 1850–1852 under Millard Fillmore), Webster negotiated the historic Webster-Ashburton Treaty of 1842, establishing the definitive northeastern boundary between the United States and Canada. In his famous 'Seventh of March' speech in 1850, he sacrificed his Northern political popularity to support the Compromise of 1850 to preserve the Union from civil war. Webster passed away on October 24, 1852, celebrated by the US Senate in 1957 as one of the Five Greatest Senators in American history.