The presidency could add nothing, its loss could take away nothing from the fame of Daniel Webster.

He longed for it eagerly; he had sacrificed much to his desire for it; his disappointment was keen and bitter at not receiving what seemed to him the fit crown of his great public career.

But this grief was purely personal, and will not be shared by posterity, who feel only the errors of those last years coming after so much glory, and who care very little for the defeat of the ambition which went with them.
Those last two years awakened such fierce disputes, and had such an absorbing interest, that they have tended to overshadow the half century of distinction and achievement which preceded them.

Failure and disappointment on the part of such a man as Webster seem so great, that they too easily dwarf everything else, and hide from us a just and well proportioned view of the whole career.

Mr.Webster's success had, in truth, been brilliant, hardly equalled in measure or duration by that of any other eminent man in our history.