To the readers of The Chautauquan:

Dear Friends:—By the generosity of our editor I am permitted to use a little space for the purpose of making here a quasi-personal statement as to a matter in which I am myself greatly interested, and in which I should greatly like to interest you.

From early boyhood I have been a student of the life, character, and works of Daniel Webster. I never saw the great man’s face; I never heard his voice; he never knew even of my being in the world. My interest in Webster is entirely removed from the influence of considerations merely personal of whatever sort; but I have learned to reverence, nay, to love the man. I owe his memory a great debt, for he has been of inestimable service to me individually, apart from the service that, in his public capacity, he rendered to all Americans in common. I have received as much inspiration to moral excellence from Webster as from any uninspired man. I catch a breath of elevating influence from his works as often as I open to read them.

During many years this sense of indebtedness on my part to Webster was much modified by an impression received, I hardly know whence, that there were serious deductions to be made from his moral worth on account of certain vicious habits into which, in his later years, he lapsed. This impression so much abated my reverence for Webster’s character that, as long as I retained it, I took but moderate pleasure in contemplating his intellectual greatness. Circumstances led me, a number of years ago, to enter somewhat deeply into a study of the facts of Webster’s life, and, to my equal delight and surprise, I found that the common fame which I had trusted, bore flagrant false witness against Webster. For this there was a reason, and that reason, after having some time been obliged to content myself with merely conjecturing it, I was able to discern and verify in a manner highly satisfactory and conclusive. The conviction that Webster was thus suffering in general esteem, undeservedly as to himself, and with great injury as to his countrymen, became at length to me a powerful motive to do what I could to vindicate and restore him to the admiration and veneration of mankind. I have read or examined everything I could hear of, accessible in print, pertaining to this great man. I have corresponded widely; I have taken journeys, and secured personal interviews; in short, I have spared no pains to arrive at the truth concerning the private character and the personal motives of Webster. The resultant estimate of his genius, character, and achievements, I have embodied in a poem which The Chautauquan has advertised as published in a volume with notes, from the press of Charles Scribner’s Sons.

I should like to have my friends, the readers of The Chautauquan, as far as possible, see this book. I shall hardly dare follow the example of contemporary German authors, or even that of the great Sir Walter Scott, and here review my own production. But I may, perhaps, without impropriety, say that the poem is the fruit of long and deep study of the subject, and much loving labor in construction and composition. It is not a piece of tinkling rhyme; but to any one who knows of Webster, even only what the notes themselves will teach, the ruggedness, the severity, the simplicity of the ode, will perhaps sufficiently justify themselves, as fit and required by the theme. There must too be passion in the song, for there certainly was passion, the passion of conviction and of indignant zeal, in the singer. The illustrative notes, at least, must interest any reader.

Now, dear friends, readers of The Chautauquan, I want you all with me to do what you can to restore a great example to the young men of our country. It is an immeasurable mischief to our aspiring young men in the law, in politics, in journalism, in literature, to think, as they have been misled to think, that they have Webster for example in joining to brilliant gifts of intellect, dissoluteness of moral character. Such a false impression on the part of our young men works a harm to them that it is impossible to calculate. It is an impression with them, and it is a false impression. We shall be doing our generation a true service to take away Webster from among the splendid lures that draw our young men into looseness of life. Webster was not immaculate, but he was on the whole a great and shining beacon to virtue and religion. Let us cleanse away the mists of foul aspersion that confuse his beneficent light.

Your friend and fellow-lover of the truth,

William C. Wilkinson.