He showed the same indifference to the source of supplies of money in other ways. He took a fee from Wheelock, and then deserted him. He came down to Salem to prosecute a murderer, and the opposing counsel objected that he was brought there to hurry the jury beyond the law and the evidence, and it was even murmured audibly in the court-room that he had a fee from the relatives of the murdered man in his pocket. A fee of that sort he certainly received either then or afterwards. Every ugly public attack that was made upon him related to money, and it is painful that the biographer of such a man as Webster should be compelled to give many pages to show that his hero was not in the pay of manufacturers, and did not receive a bribe in carrying out the provisions of the treaty of Guadaloupe-Hidalgo. The refutation may be perfectly successful, but there ought to have been no need of it. The reputation of a man like Mr. Webster in money matters should have been so far above suspicion that no one would have dreamed of attacking it. Debts and subscriptions bred the idea that there might be worse behind, and although there is no reason to believe that such was the case, these things are of themselves deplorable enough.
When Mr. Webster failed it was a moral failure. His moral character was not equal to his intellectual force. All the errors he ever committed, whether in public or in private life, in political action or in regard to money obligations, came from moral weakness. He was deficient in that intensity of conviction which carries men beyond and above all triumphs of statesmanship, and makes them the embodiment of the great moral forces which move the world. If Mr. Webster's moral power had equalled his intellectual greatness, he would have had no rival in our history. But this combination and balance are so rare that they are hardly to be found in perfection among the sons of men. The very fact of his greatness made his failings all the more dangerous and unfortunate. To be blinded by the splendor of his fame and the lustre of his achievements and prate about the sin of belittling a great man is the falsest philosophy and the meanest cant. The only thing worth having, in history as in life, is truth; and we do wrong to our past, to ourselves, and to our posterity if we do not strive to render simple justice always. We can forgive the errors and sorrow for the faults of our great ones gone; we cannot afford to hide or forget their shortcomings.