The Devil and Daniel Webster

“You see, for a while, he was the biggest man in the country. He never got to be President, but he was the biggest man. There were thousands that trusted in him right next to God.”

Benét continues to establish the legendary figure of Daniel Webster in this passage. While Webster looms large in American history, Benét’s narrator transforms the lawyer into a larger-than-life character. Suggesting that Webster is second only to God not only cements his almost superhuman presence in the story but also foreshadows his defeat of the Devil in the end. At the same time, the hyperbole contributes to the story’s irony by signaling that its claims about Webster are not to be taken literally; clearly, fish did not “jump out of the streams right into [Webster’s] pockets” (1), as the legend suggests.

“Neighbor, how stands the Union?”

Webster’s patriotism is obvious from the story’s opening lines. This quote comes from the frame narrative, which suggests that when passersby disturb Webster’s grave, he inquires about the state of the Union. This determination to keep the country together becomes a topic of conversation near the story’s conclusion, when Scratch notes that it will cause Webster’s reputation to suffer with the ardent abolitionists who objected to the Compromise of 1850. Given the source (the Devil), this critique of Webster is not exactly reliable, but it constitutes part of the story’s interest in Faustian bargains: Webster’s desire to preserve the US was so strong, the story implies, that he compromised his morals in pursuit of it.

“There was a man named Jabez Stone, lived at Cross Corners, New Hampshire. He wasn’t a bad man to start with, but he was an unlucky man. If he planted corn, he got borers; if he planted potatoes, he got blight.”

This passage is vital to the story, as it identifies the driving factor that leads Jabez Stone to accept a deal with the Devil. Unlike Faust figures who seek such a bargain to obtain eternal life or incredible knowledge, Stone simply wants freedom from his bad luck. A better life through hard work is precisely what America promises, so the fact that Stone only profits after selling his soul suggests that something is amiss with the American Dream.

“I vow it’s enough to make a man want to sell his soul to the devil! And I would, too, for two cents!”

Irony is at play in this quotation. While Stone is expressing dissatisfaction with his bad luck, he does not literally mean that he desires to sell his soul in order to change his life. In fact, Stone immediately regrets his words. However, there are hints that what Stone regrets is not so much the action itself as its potential consequences. When Mr. Scratch arrives the next day with a bargain, Stone agrees to the terms because he has “passed his word, more or less.” The qualification of Stone’s supposed vow suggests that this was merely a pretext to justify entering the deal.

“If two New Hampshiremen aren’t a match for the devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians.”

This passage is characteristic of the story’s ambivalent treatment of Indigenous Americans. Where the story elsewhere implies that the genocide of Indigenous Americans was an evil, this passage seems to justify it (or, at least, express hope that it was justified). Webster, who delivers the line, suggests that he and Stone, as white men, are morally or intellectually superior to Indigenous Americans.

“Perhaps Scratch will do for the evening. I’m often called that in these regions.”

The Devil tells Stone to refer to him by the name of Scratch. In early colonial America, the devil was colloquially and euphemistically referred to by names like Old Nick, Old Scratch, and Nick Scratch, referencing the “nicking” and “scratching” of his influence on the human soul. Washington Irving’s “The Devil and Tom Walker” (1824) uses this moniker, and “The Devil and Daniel Webster” follows suit.

“And who with better right? When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaver put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck. Am I not in your books and stories and beliefs, from the first settlements on? Am I not spoken of, still, in every church in New England? ‘Tis true the North claims me for a Southerner and the South for a Northerner, but I am neither. I am merely an honest American like yourself—and of the best descent—for, to tell the truth, Mr. Webster, though I don’t like to boast of it, my name is older in this country than yours.”

This passage is key to the story’s depiction of The Devil in America. When Webster argues that Scratch cannot claim Stone by virtue of being a “foreign prince,” Scratch responds with the above passage. Scratch provides evidence of his participation in the worst atrocities in American history, effectively arguing that these crimes—genocide, enslavement, etc.—are synonymous with American identity. This sets up the ensuing trial as a debate about the US’s fundamental character, which Webster argues that the country’s sins contribute to but do not define.

“Let it be any court you choose, so it is an American judge and an American jury!” said Dan’l Webster in his pride. “Let it be the quick or the dead; I’ll abide the issue!”

Webster demonstrates his faith in the US justice system when he commands Scratch to supply an American judge and jury to preside over Stone’s case and honor Stone’s right to a jury of his peers. However, the fact that Stone has no legal grounds for his appeal renders Webster’s words somewhat ironic; what Webster is banking on cannot be strict adherence to the law. That the jury Scratch selects turns out to consist of enemies of the state further complicates matters. The very men who would seem least moved by an appeal to patriotism return the verdict Webster hopes for—suggesting that neither the verdict nor patriotism are wholly admirable.

“Benedict Arnold is engaged upon other business.”

Benét alludes here to Benedict Arnold, an American military officer who betrayed the colonial forces by delivering sensitive information to the British during the American Revolution. Arnold’s actions made him the archetypal traitor in the American imagination, so Webster notes his absence from a jury of state enemies; Scratch’s reply suggests that Arnold has since become a liaison for the Devil.

“He admitted all the wrong that had ever been done. But he showed how, out of the wrong and the right, the suffering and the starvations, something new had come. And everybody had played a part in it, even the traitors.”

Daniel Webster articulates a version of patriotism that acknowledges America’s flaws and dark eras (including slavery and the mistreatment of Indigenous Americans). However, he asserts that these events led to a greater and stronger nation in the long run. It is unclear whether Webster views this result as justifying America’s wrongs, but there is irony in his leveraging this argument to persuade a group of “traitors” that they too have a stake in the country.

“There was sadness in being a man, but it was a proud thing too. And he showed what the pride of it was till you couldn’t help feeling it. Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man, you’d know it. And he wasn’t pleading for any one person any more, though his voice rang like an organ. He was telling the story and the failures and the endless journey of mankind. They got tricked and trapped and bamboozled, but it was a great journey. And no demon that was ever foaled could know the inwardness of it—it took a man to do that.”

Webster broadens his argument about the US to include humanity broadly in his attempt to appeal to Scratch’s jury. By appealing to desires he presumes the jurors share (e.g., freedom), Webster suggests that both Stone and the jurors are fundamentally different than Scratch in their capacity for both good and evil.

“Perhaps ‘tis not strictly in accordance with the evidence, […] but even the damned may salute the eloquence of Mr. Webster.”

The story’s irony and its exploration of The Nature of Justice culminate in this moment: The jury decides to rule in favor of Stone despite the fact that he is legally in the wrong and despite the fact that his lawyer has provided no evidence pertaining to the case’s details. The jury’s decision thus stands in direct opposition to Webster’s own beliefs about what constitutes a “fair trial.” Although the story does not go so far as to imply that “justice” would see Stone damned, it does raise questions about what constitutes justice and about whether the US justice system is truly equipped to serve it.

“After you are dead, there are thousands who will fight for your cause, because of words that you spoke.”

Benét here alludes to the American Civil War and, more specifically, Webster’s desire to preserve the Union. By telling Webster that his efforts will not be in vain, Scratch rounds out the story’s “happy ending”—another touch of irony, given his role as the antagonist.