Profiles of Great Americans: Daniel Webster

17 Jul
Daniel Webster
Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster was a great American orator, attorney and statesmen. He was born in 1782 to Ebenezer and Abigail Webster. He attended Dartmouth College. During his life he also served as a US senator, a US representative and the secretary of state. He also ran for President three times.

This man was a dedicated Christian and wrote such things as “Let us cherish these sentiments, and extend this influence still more widely; in the full conviction, that that is the happiest society which partakes in the highest degree of the mild and peaceful spirit of Christianity.” Daniel Webster truly believed that the best thing that a society could do was obey God’s law and beseech his favor through prayer.

Though a great statesmen and one of the greatest orators America has seen in its long history, Daniel Webster is not well known today. People may confuse him with Noah Webster who is credited as being the father of the American language. (He wrote the first American dictionary. He was a devout Christian as well, maybe I’ll write more on him later.) Daniel Webster, however, is a forgotten founding father. It is ironic because he himself warned against forgetting our heritage: “Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion.”