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Marshfield Mass.

How To Talk With a Boston Accent (Not for the Faint of Haht)

The Boston accent has brought many an actor to grief, especially these days as films about the city just keep coming. George Clooney famously botched it in Perfect Storm, but not as badly as Kevin Costner did in 13 Days. Mark Wahlberg, who grew up in Southie, gets it down perfectly, of course. So does Matt Damon, even though he grew up across the river in the People’s Republic (Cambridge).

Back in the day, actors used to have to lose their Boston accents if they wanted work. Leonard Nimoy, who grew up in the West End, had a wicked bad one. He got rid of it before he won the part of Spawk from Stah Trek.

One reason actors have such a hard time with the Boston accent is its complexity. Dropping the ‘r’ is only part of it. You have to put it back in some places, sometimes where it doesn’t belong. And you also have to say ‘aw’ for ‘o’ or ‘ah’ (‘hawkey’ for ‘hockey’). But you only do that sometimes – knowing when is the key.

And then on top of the weeid (weird) pronunciation, you also have to master the slang that goes with the accent.

Bahston.

R-less Boston Accent

If you want to sound smaht, you’ll describe the ‘r-less’ Boston accent as ‘non-rhotic speech.’ You’ve no doubt heard the quintessential non-rhotic Boston phrase: ‘Pahk the cah in Hah-vahd yahd,’ right? And you pronounce all the vowels the way you say ‘ah’ at the dentist.

Or do you?

Good luck findin’ pahkin’ anywhere neeah Hah-vid Yahd.

Actually, Bostonians pronounce the ‘r’ when it comes before a vowel, though they do it softly. Listen carefully, and you’ll hear a Bostonian say, ‘pahk the cahr in Hah-vahd yahd.’ But if he had more than one vehicle, he would ‘pahk the cahs in Hah-vahd yahd.’

Plus, Bostonians talk fast, and they tend to mush their consonants together. So ‘Hah-vahd’ usually sounds more like ‘Hah-vid.’

And when you drop the ‘r,’ remember your voice goes up in pitch.

Got it?

Jordan’s Furniture, Boston Accent Style

There’s more than that to the way Bostonians deal with their ‘r’s. When the vowel is ‘er,’ you don’t drop the ‘r.’ So, “The Gahd’n went crazy when Larry Bird stole the ball.” Boston has at least two gahd’ns: Boston Garden and the Public Garden. Both are just ‘the gahd’n.’

Another signature sound of Boston speech: ‘or’ comes out as ‘aw.” So ‘Jordan’s Furniture’ sounds like ‘Jawdin’s Furnichah.’

For more than fawty (forty) years, Barry and Eliot Tatelman blanketed the airwaves with comical Jordan’s Furniture commercials. “We don’t sell those cheap sets that fall apaht,” they’d say. “You can tell when you open a dressa draw!”

Not only do they get the accent right, they even sold a chair once called the Boston Accent.

Jawdin’s Furnichah has an ImAX theatre in Reading. Really.

That Pesky O

As audiobook narrator Matt Haynes points out, Bostonians don’t substitute ‘aw’ for ‘o’ if preceded by an ‘s,’ ‘ng,’ ‘f,’ ‘l’ or ‘th.’

Boston Mayor Kevin White used to say ‘mother of God’ a lot. It came out ‘muh-thuhr aw Gawd.’

Or you might get ‘stawpped in Bahston by a statie for bangin’ a U-ey.’ (Translation: ‘stopped in Boston by a state policeman for making a U-turn.’)

The Intrusive R

Bostonians like to add ‘r’s’ at the end of words, like ‘Linder’ and ‘idear.’ Many people remember President Kennedy’s trouble with the Russians in ‘Cuber.’ But the Kennedys don’t really have a Boston accent. They have a Kennedy accent, a unique (some say pretentious) mix of the Transatlantic and Boston accents. So don’t mimic Mayor Quimby on the animated television series, The Simpsons, unless you’re making fun of a Kennedy.

You can listen to JFK pronounce “Jordan Marsh” in a Kennedy accent in this video here.

JFK delivers a speech in a Kennedy accent.

Boston politicians naturally have their own lingo. They raise campaign funds at a ‘time.’ They disclose damaging information about an opponent (‘oppo’) by ‘droppin’ a dime on’ or ‘diming out’ that person. Campaign volunteers ‘hold a sign’ for a candidate. It’s a good way to ‘get on the state’ (a sweet job, say at Massport) if your candidate wins.

In real Bostonspeak, the intrusive ‘r’ also shows up where ‘r’s’ don’t usually go — like before a vowel. So if you want to know where your muthah went, you might say, “Is Mar upstairs?” (Thanks to Matt Damon for that one!)

Or you might find yourself ‘soring wood’ or ‘making a withdroral from an ATM.’

Talk Fast and Drop Your Consonants

In the entire United States, only people in Oregon and Minnesota talk faster than Bostonians. So consonants often get left behind. “Why did you…?” equals “Whyja?” “Did you eat already?” becomes “Jeet orreddy?”

If the answer to “Jeet?” is no, you could go for chowda (chowder) or a spuckie (a sandwich, though that’s fading). Wash it all down with tawnic (tonic, also fading) or soder (soda), the proper names for carbonated soft drinks. Finish it off with a Hoodsie (ice cream cup). But ‘hoodsie’ also refers to a pretty teen-aged girl. She probably wears earrings in her PSDS (pierced ears).

When you buy b’daydas (the noble spud) at the Stah Mahket (Star Market), you probably need a carriage (shopping cart). Bring your pockabook (pocketbook). Same goes for the fahmisee (pharmacy) and the packie (liquor store).

‘Bubbler,’ for some reason, refers to ‘water fountain’ in both Boston and Wisconsin. Good luck finding one. And if you order a regular coffee from the Dunkies onna conna, you’ll get cream and sugar in it.

One on every conna.

Place Names per the Boston Accent

Medford, a city nawtha Bahston, is ‘MED-feh’ or ‘MEH-feh’ to someone who doesn’t live there. But to someone who does live there, it’s ‘MED-fid’ or ‘MEF-id.’ No one ever calls it Medford.

Many Massachusetts place names have consonants on paper but not in reality. So Worcester becomes Woostuh, Leicester Lestuh, Gloucester Glosstuh.

Bahston has a lot of neighborhoods you can get to on the T: the Nawth End, Southie, Dot or Dawchestah, JP (Jamaica Plain) and Rozzy (Roslindale). West Roxbury is generally just West Roxbury. Townies live in Charlestown, once the armored-car-robbery capital of the world.

If you happen to drive around Bahston, you might find yourself on an av – Dotav (Dorchester Avenue), Massav (Massachusetts Avenue) or Commav (Commonwealth Avenue).

A lot of people go down the Cape, maybe to P-town. The traffic on the expressway can back up for days (a long time), so you might have to take the breakdown lane (shoulder). But they got rid of the rotary (traffic circle) just before the Sagamore Bridge, and that helps a little bit.

[Ed note: Bostonians will give directions to lost Midwesterners with the extremely unhelpful, “Before you get to…” As in “Before you get to where the old K-Mart used to be.” Most directions also include the Dunkies onna conna (the ‘Dunkin’ Donuts on the corner’), also extremely unhelpful because there’s a Dunkies on every conna.]

Other Boston Accented Place Names

Before you get to the Cape (grr), you’ll hit the Irish Riviera, also known as the South Shore. Scituate (Sit-u-it) and Marshfield (Mahshfield) form the epicenter of the Irish Riviera, where some wealthy people live in Ka-chingham (Hingham) and Deluxebury (Duxbury). Not-so-wealthy Quincy has a z (Quinzy), though the sixth president’s name doesn’t.

Re-VEE-ah (Revere) lies just nawtha Boston and PEA-biddy (Peabody) lies nawtha Revere. You might hear someone say, “Dawn breaks over Marblehead,” a version of ‘duh’ that refers to the coastal town next to Salem.

‘Lynn, Lynn, City of sin, You never go out the way you came in,’ refers to the North Shore city with a reputation for vice and corruption. Back in the 1990s, one mayor tried to change the city’s image with a new name – Ocean Pahk. He failed. You still won’t go out the way you come in.

To get to Woostuh or anyplace westuh Boston, you take the MassPike. Accents start changing westuh Woostuh.

The MassPike

Spawts Teams

Bostonians embrace spawts (sports), with even more fervor than they embrace politics.

The Sawx (Red Sox) play at Fenway, where players hit homers over the Green Monster and past the Pesky Pole. Only Ted Williams could hit one into the Red Seat. The Big Dig (highway construction project) created a tunnel named after him, ‘The Ted.’

Don’t try to beat Tawm Brady heeah.

The Pats, or the Patsies, play in Foxboro, where Tom Brady once played as the Goat (greatest of all time). He might have gotten a tunnel too, if he hadn’t gone to Tamper Bay.

The B’s or the Broons (Bruins) and the Celtics play at the Gahden. Bawby Oah was the greatest Broon evah, but has yet to get a tunnel.

Four colleges play hawkey in the Beanpot tournament every year: Boston College, Boston University, Harvard and Northeastern. If you get a law degree from BC and went to BC and BC High, you’re a Triple Eagle. A graduate of both Harvard and Harvard Medical School is a 4-Her. To a kid from Somerville (or Slumerville), a Harvard student is a Bahney (Barney).

If you find all of this baffling, but you want to fit in as a Bostonian, there’s a simple remedy: Talk fast and hate the Yankees.

Want to know how to talk with a New Hampshire accent? Click here. For Rhode Island, click here, for Connecticut click here and for Maine, click here. And stay tuned for Vermont and Western Mass.

Images: Harvard Square and Harvard Yard By User:Chensiyuan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=9954526; Jordan’s Furniture By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41771437; Boston By Riptor3000, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2839215; Dunkin’ Donuts by By Michael Rivera – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=57287297. The MassPike By Nathan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=23296975. This story was updated in 2022.

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The Hope and Despair of Acadian Exiles, 1755-1766

In the winter of 1755, two Marshfield, Mass., selectmen knocked on the door of the Michel family, seven Acadian exiles. They brought bad news: The two oldest sons, 23-year-old Francis and 15-year-old Paul, had to go into involuntary servitude. Francis would work for a farmer, Paul as a sailor, though he suffered from debilitating seasickness.

New England had no love for the French families living among them. But the French families — Acadian exiles — had no choice because the British had resettled them there by force.

Acadian Exiles

When the French and Indian War raged in Nova Scotia, French families refused to take a loyalty oath to the British ended up in exile. The Acadian refugees who landed in Puritan New England bore the stigma of their Catholic religion — and of their poverty.

Beginning in 1755, the British took nearly 10,000 Acadians from their homes and forcibly deported them to the British colonies and to England. They confiscated or burned the Acadian exiles’ houses and farms, and deliberately separated families.

The colonies, Massachusetts and Connecticut, treated the Acadian exiles like prisoners of war. They could not practice their religion, nor could they move from town to town.

The Michel family had more luck than most. They survived the disease-ridden voyage to Boston, and the family stayed together. The two eldest sons threw off their indentures and worked for wages. The town even helped feed and shelter them.

French and Indian War

Map of Acadia

For many years the French and British fought over Acadia. The region included Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, parts of southern Quebec and northern Maine.

By 1713 the British took control and demanded loyalty from Acadians. Most refused, earning the nickname “French Neutrals.” That posed a problem for the British, since the French far outnumbered them in Acadia.

Gov. William Shirley

Massachusetts officials also worried about the Acadians. Gov. William Shirley feared for the safety of Massachusetts merchants and sailors in Acadian waters. Usually three or four boats from Boston anchored there at a time.

In 1751, the French began to build Fort Beausejour in nearby New Brunswick. Shirley began recruiting forces to kick them out of Acadia. Troops that left Boston in May of 1755 captured Fort Beausejour in June.

Le Grand Derangement

Illustration of the Acadians listening to the deportation order.

On Sept. 5, 1755, the expulsion of the Acadians began. The British announced they would seize the homes and property of the French Neutrals. The Acadians called it Le Grand Derangement.

The British lured Acadian men into churches under false pretenses and then locked them inside. They seized others in their homes and their fields. Their wives and children had to feed them at gunpoint until ships took them away. The British took over their farms and livestock, pillaging and burning their homes to make sure they wouldn’t return.

Estimates vary, but the British rounded up as many as 10,000 Acadians out of a population of 12,000. On Oct. 8, 1755, they boarded ships provided by Thomas Hancock, uncle of John Hancock. The ships sailed to the 13 British colonies in North America and to France. Several thousand died of disease, starvation and drowning.

John Winslow, the second in command in Nova Scotia, described the scene. They “began to Embarke the Inhabitants who went verry solentarily and Unwillingly. the women in Great Distress Carrying Their Children In their arms.”

Others, he wrote, carried their decrepit parents in carts in scenes of confusion, woe and distress.

Acadian Exiles in Massachusetts

On Nov. 15, 1755 the first overcrowded ships filled with sick, hungry Acadian exiles arrived. There hadn’t been enough food for the journey and many died of smallpox or malaria.

A deportation ship

Nearly 2,000 Acadians sailed into Boston Harbor to be parceled out to the colony’s 98 towns. The General Court gave overseers of the poor the power to ’employ, bind out or support’ the Acadian families. That generally meant indentured servitude.

The first ship, the sloop Seaflower, entered Boston Harbor with 206 destitute Acadians aboard. They then continued to arrive until the French and Indian War ended in 1763. Once on shore, the colony treated them like convicts.

Thomas Hutchinson in 1750.

Some took pity on the Acadian exiles. As a member of the General Court, Thomas Hutchinson tried to keep families together and helped write letters petitioning the Legislature. He may have helped Joseph Michel write a letter asking that his sons be released from their indenture. In Westborough, Ebenezer Parkman (grandfather of historian Francis Parkman) befriended Simon Leblanc and gave work to his children.

More often the Acadian exiles were feared and hated. A letter to the editor of the Boston Gazette cautioned the Acadian exiles could escape in stolen ships. Or they could destroy the town or powder house, ‘heated with Passion and Popish zeal.”

If there were any Catholic priests in Massachusetts, they weren’t allowed to say Mass. Acadians who wanted to get married did so by laymen and hoped they could renew their vows in front of a French priest some day in the future.

Departation of the Acadians

Acadian Exiles

At first, the Acadian exiles had some freedom. Some took jobs as sailors and left for Canada. In response, the General Court passed a law in April forbidding Acadian exiles to work as sailors. Soon after, lawmakers ordered them to stay within the boundaries of their assigned towns.

Marbleheaders complained about the 37 Acadians they got stuck with. The exiles could escape by water, but the town would have to support them if they didn’t.

An Acadian fisherman named Belloni Melancon ended up in the frontier village of Lancaster. He apprenticed his son to an artisan to earn money, but the artisan beat him so badly he couldn’t use his arm for a month. Then the town got sick of supporting the destitute Melancons. Some townspeople took Belloni’s crippled wife from her bed and threw her into a cart.

Melancon then petitioned the General Court to let him move to Weymouth, where he could earn a living as a fisherman. The General Court allowed him to go to Weymouth and fish, and the state paid for his rent and wood.

On The Town

Thomas Hancock by John Smibert

The towns expected the General Court to reimburse them for the expense of keeping the Acadian exiles. The General Court in turn expected payment from Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia expected payment from Great Britain. Only Massachusetts helped pay to feed, house and clothe the Acadian exiles who couldn’t support themselves.

In Newton, only two of the 13 Acadian exiles could work, since most were children. The town billed the General Court for a six-month supply of food for them: 206-3/4 pounds of pork, 166 quarts of milk and 10 bushels of Indian meal to the Acadians.

In Methuen, Laurence Mius protested in the fall of 1756 that he worked for two months, but received only three rods of old cloth, two pounds of dried cod and a pound of pork fat. The overseer of the poor chased him with a poker and beat him so badly he spit blood for a day.

In Wilmington, John Labrador and his seven children lived in a house with no roof. He complained when the house flooded, and a town councilor told him to build a boat and navigate in it.

Not Wanted Here

Early on, Massachusetts officials tried to get rid of some of the refugees. Thomas Hancock outfitted a vessel to take some of them to North Carolina in May 1756. But the Acadian exiles overpowered the crew and forced their way back.

Massachusetts asked New Hampshire to take in some of the Acadians, but New Hampshire refused.

Some Acadian exiles were confined to the workhouse or hospital in Boston. But then in 1760, colonial troops returned from the war. The sick Acadian exiles were turned out of the hospital to make room for the sick and wounded troops.

In 1762, French forces occupied St. John’s in Newfoundland, galvanizing the Acadians. In response, the British rounded up more Acadians and put them aboard five English vessels headed toward Boston. But then the Massachusetts government refused them permission to land and sent them back to Halifax.

Map of deportation

Acadian Exiles in Connecticut

Acadian exiles began arriving in New London, Conn., in late 1755 and continued through the next year. In the end, 400 arrived in Connecticut and went to 50 different towns. Haddon received three, Hartford 13, Wethersfield nine, Farmington 14, and so forth.

A 76-year-old man and his seven grandchildren went to Woodbury in the winter of 1756. The malnourished, vermin-ridden cousins had been separated from their parents. The town’s overseer of the poor put the children to work for joiners and farmers.

On Jan. 2, 1757, four adults described as ‘skeletal,’ ‘naked’ and ‘having the itch, vermin, etc.,’ staggered into Woodbury for a joyous reunion with their children. The British sent the parents to Annapolis, Md. They then spent a year petitioning officials to let them reunite with their children.

War Ends

Under the Treaty of Paris of 1763, the Acadian exiles had 19 months to leave the British North American colonies for any French colony. They began petitioning to go home to Nova Scotia, to Quebec, to France, or to the French West Indies, specifically Saint-Domingue (Haiti).

However, they had to pay for their own transport.

In 1766, 900 Acadian exiles in Massachusetts gathered in Boston and decided to return to their native land. They marched 400 miles through the wilderness. Many died along the way. Then in Acadia they found the English had taken over their farms. They found new homes in the counties of Digby and Yarmouth.

Many found their way to Louisiana, where they are called Cajuns.

The Michel Family

Petition of Joseph Michel

The Michel family belonged to the lucky ones. A wealthy Marshfield landowner, Nathaniel Ray Thomas, supported them briefly. The town helped pay for wood for cooking and heating, let the family use a cow for milk and eventually paid for Joseph Michel’s funeral.

Michel then petitioned the General Court for help. He argued that Francis and Papul already had jobs and the indenture should be considered null and void. The General Court investigated and finally agreed with Michel. Since the Acadian boys were willing to work, they shouldn’t be forced into indenture, the Court decided. The family then stayed in Marshfield after the war ended.

End Notes

For an alphabetical list of the Acadians/French Neutrals exiled to Connecticut, click here.

For a list of the Acadians/French Neutrals exiled to Massachusetts – and to the specific towns they were parceled out to – click here and here.

Photos: Map of Acadia 1754 By Mikmaq – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1351882; Portrait of Thomas Hancock, By Cullen328 (Jim Heaphy) – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18351503. With thanks to The Acadian Diaspora by Christopher Hodson and Le Grand Derangement 1755-1766, The Acadian Exile in Massachusetts by the Massachusetts Secretary of State.

This story was updated in 2023.

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How Boston’s South Shore Became the Irish Riviera

Visit the South Shore of Massachusetts and you won’t have much doubt about why people call it the Irish Riviera. Orange-and-green flags fly from many a home, and the region is filled with Roman Catholic churches and schools, Irish dance schools and Irish pubs, restaurants and bakeries.

Nantasket Beach along the Irish Riviera

You may conclude the Irish Riviera resulted from suburban flight from the working-class neighborhoods of Boston, that most Irish of American cities. But well before the exodus to Braintree, Hull and Marshfield, well-heeled Irish families had built seaside Victorian mansions along the coast south of Boston. And even before that, the Irish gained a toehold in what is now the most Irish town in America: Scituate, Mass. They did it by engaging in the now-lost industry of Irish mossing.

Mossing

Irish immigrants began arriving in Boston during the Irish potato famine starting in 1842. Daniel Ward, an Irish immigrant, headed south and started collecting seaweed, or mossing, in the 1850s in Scituate.

Irish moss

Irish moss is a red algae used as a thickener and stabilizer in ice cream, beer, wine, medicine and in calico dye manufacturing. Mossers hauled the slimy stuff from the sea floor with heavy rakes at low tide. Those who mossed at both low tides could gather as much as 1,000 pounds a day. Others made money spreading the seaweed on the beach to dry and packing it into crates.

It was a full-time job for Irish immigrants during the mid-19^th century. But it didn’t make Daniel Ward rich. The salvage rights to the Forest Queen in 1854 did. The wrecked vessel from London had carried a load of silver bars, and Daniel Ward got the rights to them.

Scituate Harbor

He built a big house on a cliff and offered it for use as the first Catholic Mass. Starting in 1856, priests said Mass there four times a year.

In 1942, an anonymous mosser told American Magazine, “It’s a great farm we have out there. We don’t have to plow it or plant it, but it gives us four crops a season.” By the end of World War II, it was a lucrative summer job for young people. It died out, a victim of cheap labor overseas. Lucien Rousseau, the last commercial sea mosser, died in 1983.

But Scituate’s Irish mossers left a legacy: the Irish Riviera. Once they established an Irish-Catholic enclave in the town, Quincy and Randolph built parishes in 1848 and 1850.

The Irish Riviera

John F. Kennedy and others sitting on the deck of the Kennedy family home in Hyannis, Mass. Left to right: Ethel Skakel Kennedy, Jean Kennedy, an unidentified man, an unidentified woman, John F. Kennedy, K. LeMoyne (“Lem”) Billings, and an unidentified woman. (Photographer unknown. John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, Boston)

As the Boston Irish began to acquire wealth and power, they began to move to large houses on the South Shore, to Marshfield, Scituate and Cohasset, according to historian Thomas O’Connor. Boston’s rogue mayor, James Michael Curley, spent summers in Scituate. In hot weather, Irish families visited Nantasket, Wollaston and Hough’s Neck beaches.

Nantasket Beach in Hull was a fashionable vacation spot for the well-off Irish. Rose Fitzgerald’s family had a place on Nantasket Beach in Hull. Fenian John Boyle O’Reilly died at his summer home there.

After World War II the migration accelerated as returning GIs from South Boston, Hyde Park and Dorchester moved to the South Shore suburbs. It continued through the 1950s and 1960s.

By The Numbers

Today, Scituate and Marshfield are the epicenter of the Irish Riviera, which some consider the stretch from Weymouth to Kingston. Others consider the Irish Riviera to comprise Milton and Quincy outside of Boston to Cape Cod, where the Kennedy family still maintains a compound. The late Speaker of the House Thomas P. ‘Tip’ O’Neill retired to Harwich Port on the Cape.

Nearly 50 percent of Scituate residents have Irish ancestry. The Fieldston neighborhood of Marshfield is the most Irish-American section of the second-most Irish-American town in the United States. At least 44 percent of the population in Marshfield, Braintree, Hull, Avon, Pembroke and Milton have Irish ancestry.

According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2005-2009 American Community Survey, 19 of the top-20 most Irish communities in Massachusetts are south of Boston. Here they are by the percentage of residents who claim Irish ancestry:

47.5 Scituate
46.5 Braintree
45.8 Hull
45.6 Marshfield
44.9 Avon
44.9 Pembroke
44.6 Milton
44.5 Abington
44.3 Whitman
44.2 Hanover
43.4 Weymouth
43.0 Walpole
42.2 Holbrook
41.4 Duxbury
41.2 Norwell
40.8 Hanson
17.4 Boston

This story about the Irish Riviera was updated in 2022.

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Daniel Webster Risks It All on the Seventh of March

The Seventh of March Speech was one of the most famous orations delivered by Daniel Webster, an orator who had no equal.

Webster had worked magic with his grandiloquence, attracting large crowds to hear him on historic occasions like the anniversary of the Pilgrims’ landing. As the South threatened to secede from the union, he thought his Seventh of March speech would preserve the nation.

Not only did it fail, but it cost him his greatest ambition: the presidency of the United States.

Daniel Webster (lower right) addressing the U.S. Senate on the Seventh of March. Image courtesy Library of Congress.

Daniel Webster

For nearly two decades, Daniel Webster had dominated the courts, the legislature and the public speaking circuit. He was a leader among America’s second generation of statesmen, along with Henry Clay, Stephen Douglas and John C. Calhoun.

In early 1850 he intended to rebuke the abolitionists, who he viewed as fanatics and demagogues driving the nation toward a bloody schism. In the Seventh of March speech he argued that slavery had nothing to do with human rights. Instead, he said, it resulted from history, geography, politics and law.

He didn’t persuade his Massachusetts constituents. Instead, he infuriated them.

He had risked his career and his reputation, and he lost.

The Compromise of 1850

In the beginning of 1850, the South was hurtling toward the frightening crisis of secession. Senators Henry Clay of Kentucky and Stephen Douglas of Illinois were trying to avert the crisis with The Compromise of 1850. The compromise included five bills that resolved the status of territories acquired during the Mexican-American War.

The US. after the Compromise of 1850

Under the compromise, Texas would surrender its claim to New Mexico and California would be admitted as a free state. Washington would ban the slave trade, but Utah and New Mexico would be allowed to decide for themselves whether to be slave or free states. Finally, the Fugitive Slave Act would require government officials in free states and territories to return escaped slaves to their owners.

Webster supported the compromise. He feared for the fate of the nation, and he didn’t have much time to save it. And at 68 his health was failing. “I am nearly broken down with labor and anxiety,” he wrote.

He knew South Carolina Sen. John C. Calhoun intended a speech attacking the compromise in early March. Webster wanted to help bring the moderates together to help Clay and Douglas, and he thought a speech could do it.

So did others. His supporters told him he would eclipse George Washington if he could pull it off.

One Democrat begged Webster to reconcile the North and South. “Do it, Mr. Webster; as you can do it, like a bold and gifted Statesman and Patriot.”

The Seventh of March

He hastily drew up the speech. On March 7, 1850, he stood up and began with the soon-famous words:

Mr. President, I wish to speak today, not as a Massachusetts man, nor as a Northern man, but as an American, and a member of the Senate of the United States. . . . I speak for the preservation of the Union. Hear me for my cause.

He spoke for 3-1/2 hours, a relatively short time for Webster, who sometimes went on for five. In it, he supported the Fugitive Slave Act.

“The South, in my judgment, is right, “ he had said, “and the North is wrong.”

The Seventh of March speech slammed into Massachusetts, like a nor’easter. The people of the commonwealth swiftly condemned him for it.

Daniel Webster

“Liberty! Liberty! Pho!” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. “Let Mr. Webster, for decency’s sake shut his lips for once and forever on this word. The word ‘Liberty’ in the mouth of Mr. Webster sounds like the word ‘love’ in the mouth of a courtesan.”

Horace Mann called him “a fallen star! Lucifer descending from Heaven!” And the Rev. Theodore Parker said, ‘“No living man has done so much to debauch the conscience of the nation.”

Seventh of March Counterattack

Webster fought back against his critics. He had 200,000 copies of the Seventh of March speech printed and ordered them sent to ‘every man that reads the Atlas,’ and to every town in New England, New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.

Webster revised it as The Constitution and the Union (click here for the full text). He supervised the preparation of a letter in his defense signed by 800 prominent Massachusetts men, including Rufus Choate, Oliver Wendell Holmes and George Ticknor.

Southerners and Northern moderates received the speech warmly. Several hundred New York businessmen sent him a thank you letter and a gold watch.

Millard Fillmore

But the Seventh of March speech finished Daniel Webster’s Senate career. Four months later on July 17, he delivered another speech to the Senate – his farewell speech. He then resumed his position as President Millard Fillmore’s Secretary of State.

In 1852, he unsuccessfully sought the Whig nomination for president while suffering cirrhosis of the liver. Shortly thereafter, he fell off his horse at his home in Marshfield, Mass., crushing his head in the fall.

Daniel Webster died on Oct. 24, 1852, after uttering the words, “I still live.”

With thanks to Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time by Robert Vincent Remini. This story about the Seventh of March speech was updated in 2023. Images: U.S. map By Made by User:Golbez. – Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=996206.

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