“So Much a Piece of Nature”: Emerson, Webster, and the Transcendental Constitution

This essay tracks Ralph Waldo Emerson's obsession with Daniel Webster, from early hero-worship to bitter disillusionment over the Fugitive Slave Act to posthumous vindication. It argues that Webster's trajectory parallels that of the Constitution, and concludes that the postbellum Constitution embodies Webster's positivist reverence and Emerson's faith in higher law.