| Born at Salisbury, now Franklin, New Hampshire | January 18, 1782 |
| Graduated at Dartmouth College | 1801 |
| Admitted to the bar | 1805 |
| Practised law in Boscawen, New Hampshire | 1805–7 |
| Removed to Portsmouth, New Hampshire | 1807 |
| Member of the United States House of Representatives from New Hampshire | 1813–7 |
| Removed to Boston | 1816 |
| Dartmouth College case, United States Supreme Court | 1818 |
| Member of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention | 1820–1 |
| Oration at Plymouth, Massachusetts | 1820 |
| Member of the United States House of Representatives from Massachusetts | 1823–7 |
| Gibbons versus Ogden case | 1823 |
| Oration at the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Monument | 1825 |
| Eulogy on Adams and Jefferson | 1826 |
| Senator from Massachusetts | 1827–41 |
| Reply to Hayne | 1830 |
| Argument in White murder case, Salem, Massachusetts | 1830 |
| Reply to Calhoun: The Constitution not a Compact between Sovereign States | 1833 |
| Secretary of State under Presidents Harrison and Tyler | 1841–3 |
| Webster-Ashburton Treaty between the United States and England | 1842 |
| Oration on the completion of Bunker Hill Monument | 1843 |
| Senator from Massachusetts | 1845–50 |
| Seventh of March Speech for compromise between Northern and Southern States | 1850 |
| Secretary of State under President Fillmore | 1850–2 |
| Died at Marshfield, Massachusetts | October 24, 1852 |
