Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) was an American lawyer, orator, and Whig statesman from Massachusetts who was the preeminent constitutional advocate of the antebellum era. Educated at Dartmouth College, he argued landmark cases before the Marshall Supreme Court, including Dartmouth College v. Woodward, McCulloch v. Maryland, and Gibbons v. Ogden, establishing federal supremacy and national commercial unity.

As US Senator, Webster delivered his celebrated 1830 Second Reply to Hayne, refuting nullification with the immortal peroration: 'Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable!' Serving twice as Secretary of State, he negotiated the 1842 Webster-Ashburton Treaty defining the US-Canadian border. In his famous Seventh of March speech in 1850, he sacrificed his Northern popularity to endorse Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850 to preserve the Union.