29 pages • 58 minutes read
The Devil and Daniel Webster
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Themes
The Devil in America
In the Christian mythology that “The Devil and Daniel Webster” and other Faust stories draw on, the Devil embodies ultimate evil. Scratch, however, seems to embody a specifically American form of evil. This is the thrust of Scratch’s claim that he ought to be considered an American citizen:
When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there. When the first slaves put out for the Congo, I stood on her deck. […] ‘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 (6).
Scratch here cites the genocide of Indigenous Americans and the enslavement of Africans as his work (indeed his reference to Stone as his “property” renders the association between slavery and the Devil closer still). Just as importantly, he implies that these sins are what it means to be American, to the extent that they unite even the North and South in shared guilt.
Nor is this the only way in which the story Americanizes the Devil. Where many Faust figures make a deal with the Devil in exchange for otherworldly knowledge and eternal life, Stone agrees to Scratch’s bargain for monetary gain. On the one hand, this is an indictment of American society’s elevation of profit over morality (it is worth noting that both slavery and westward colonial expansion were driven in part by financial motivations). This is why Benét’s Scratch appears in the guise of a capitalist, carrying a pocketbook and handing out “mortgages.” At the same time, it is significant that Stone’s ambitions are (at least initially) very modest: He simply wants to make a living, echoing the American Dream’s promise that with patience and hard work, anyone can advance in society. However, this promise seems broken for Stone, who labors on his farm but does not even earn enough to feed his growing family. It is only when Stone signs his deal with Scratch that his luck changes, which implies that success in America is not so much a question of hard work as it is of moral corruption: To get ahead, one must literally sell one’s soul.
Benét thus uses Scratch to critique the American mythos. Where Webster acknowledges the country’s sins but suggests that its core ideals are sound, the story as a whole is more skeptical. Stone’s rise in society, an apparent American success story, coincides with his moral fall, and the frequent references to atrocities like slavery illustrate where that fall can lead.
Patriotism and the Limits of Loyalty
On its face, “The Devil and Daniel Webster” is a highly patriotic text. For the narrator, Webster’s devotion to his country is legendary; he even claims that “stars and stripes” (an allusion to the US flag) would appear whenever Webster spoke. The events that follow testify to Webster’s patriotism, as when he calls for a trial with an “American judge and an American jury” (6). Given that Stone receives the verdict he and Webster were hoping for, Webster’s faith in the American justice system would seem to bear fruit.
However, several factors complicate the story’s depiction of patriotism, from the national sins that the story highlights to the basic fact that Webster does not win Stone’s case on legal merit. Indeed, the two are interrelated. As Hathorne’s presence as judge makes clear, miscarriages of justice number among America’s flaws. Webster’s speech to the jury underscores the relationship by leveraging national pride to circumvent strict “justice.” Stone, he argues, is a good but flawed man, much as America is a good but flawed country: “[Webster] admit[s] all the wrong that had ever been done [in America]. But he show[s] 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” (8). This appeal to patriotism wins over the jury, but given the nature of the jury—men Webster describes as “traitors”—it is unclear whether they are genuinely moved or, assuming they are, whether that speaks well of patriotism.
Of course, the story does not suggest that Stone’s damnation would be morally “just.” However, that very fact raises further questions about the nature of loyalty, whether to the Devil or to a morally compromised country. Stone’s ostensible reason for accepting a deal that he should not is his sense that he has “passed his word” (2)—i.e., pledged a kind of allegiance to Scratch. There are hints of a similar “bargain” in Webster’s all-consuming devotion to the Union. As Scratch hints, this loyalty will drive Webster to accept the Compromise of 1850 despite Webster’s lifelong moral objections to slavery. Webster himself declares this a worthwhile trade, but the way in which he does so underscores the parallel to Stone’s situation: “[B]y the thirteen original colonies, I’d go to the Pit itself to save the Union!” (10). This reference to Hell casts doubt on the merits of unwavering patriotism, suggesting that there may be times when “disloyalty” is preferable.
The Nature of Justice
That a court trial marks the climax of “The Devil and Daniel Webster” indicates the story’s interest in justice and the justice system. It is through this trial that Stone secures his release from his deal with Scratch—an apparent endorsement of the legal system’s ability to deliver fair results.
Strictly speaking, however, Stone’s acquittal is not “just.” As the story repeatedly insists, Stone’s contract with Scratch is legally binding: “For there wasn’t any doubt as to the deed or the signature—that was the worst of it” (5). According to the letter of the law, then, the jury ought to hold Stone to account. Nevertheless, the story resists depicting the trial’s outcome as a simple miscarriage of justice, rendering Stone’s reasons for striking a deal with Scratch sympathetic; Stone might be hypocritical and cowardly, but he is in danger of being damned not principally for these qualities but rather for his poverty. Moreover, the story is quick to remind readers that the mere fact that something is legal does not make it moral, as in this exchange between Scratch and Webster:
‘I shall call upon you, as a law-abiding citizen, to assist me in taking possession of my property.’
[…] [Webster] pointed out the property had increased in value, and state senators ought to be worth more; the stranger stuck to the letter of the law. He was a great lawyer, Dan’l Webster, but we know who’s the King of Lawyers, as the Good Book tells us (5).
Given the story’s 19th-century setting, it is difficult not to connect the human-as-property argument with the defense of slavery, which was legal in much of antebellum America. That Webster accepts the terms of this argument paints a cynical view of what it means to be a “law-abiding citizen.” The argument that follows is based on a technicality—that Stone’s “value” has changed since the time of the agreement—which further undermines the notion that justice and morality align in the legal system. Finally, the passage refers to the Devil as the “King of Lawyers,” implying that there is something underhanded about the law and those who practice it.
It is because Scratch has the law on his side (both practically and morally) that Webster must resort to emotional appeal and finally to violence to triumph over him: After recruiting the jury to Stone’s side with his oratory, Webster grabs and shakes Scratch, extorting a promise from him not to ensnare any more citizens of New Hampshire. Yet the story does not quite suggest that Webster is simply or justifiably resorting to these methods in the absence of legal justice. Rather, it portrays Webster’s actions as intertwined with the failures of the justice system. Tellingly, the promise Webster extracts from Scratch takes the form of a document “in proper and legal form” (9). This detail suggests that the legal system’s failures to deliver justice may go much deeper than a few questionable laws; rather, the entire system seems to be based on force.
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