Life of Daniel Webster

Life Of Daniel Webster by Benjamin Franklin Tefft is a reverent, panoramic biography that treats the closing chapters of Daniel Webster's life and legacy as a composite portrait, weaving together his final public acts, personal character, religious faith, and enduring influence. The work situates Webster in the early 1850s United States, when he served as Secretary of State under Millard Fillmore, navigating national crises over the Union, sectional tensions, and foreign affairs. It surveys his last Senate speech of July 17, 1850 urging compromise to preserve the Union, his return to the State Department after President Taylor's death, and his diplomatic role in defending US interests abroad. The narrative blends analysis of his speeches, writings, and key moments in diplomacy with intimate depictions of his family life, illness, and death in 1852, including the will, epitaph, and Marshfield memory. The author emphasizes the primacy of the Constitution, moderation, public eloquence as moral force, and a religious, morally purposeful life that shaped America’s self-understanding and the memory of Webster as a great statesman and orator.