Considered to be the greatest orator of his time, Daniel Webster argued more than 200 cases before the Supreme Court. An early opponent of slavery, calling it a “great moral evil, he also opposed the Indian Removal Act, and the War with Mexico, but his passion for preserving the Union put him in the position of helping to support the Fugitive Slave Act as part of a bargain to admit “free states” into the Union.
Called a “Lucifer descending from the heavens” as a result of his compromise with the South, Webster did not live to see the results of his efforts collapse in the Civil War. Whether he ever took on Mr. Scratch, the devil in Stephen Vincent Benet’s short story, the words he spoke to the jury of the damned still ring true today.
In his argument to the jury, Webster acknowledges his role in what he came to realize was a failure, “Liberty and Union but I realized there is no union without liberty.” The play Scratch speaks to the depth that was Daniel Webster. Join us on Sunday November 21 for a meaningful exploration of these and other questions.
Prayer for the Day
Merciful Creator, you anoint our afflictions and cleanse our wounds,
May the wounds we have caused others be forgiven;
Redeeming God, you bind up the broken hearted and despairing,
May we turn the despair of others into hope for the future.
Be the pearls of wisdom in our lives, transforming us
Into living models of the One who opened us to your life
In the name of him who is your life in the world,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The proper function of a government is to make it easy for the people to do good and difficult for them to do evil.
Daniel Webster, Senator from New Hampshire, Secretary of State (1792-1852)
The body can endure compromise and the mind can be seduced by it. Only the heart protests.
Jeanette Wintersong, British writer
Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my being takes refuge;
In the shadow of your wings, I will take refuge, until the destroying storms pass by.
I cry to God Most High, to God who fulfills a purpose for me.
Psalm 57: 1-2