Editing The Devil and Daniel Webster (section)

==Major themes==

=== Patriotism ===
[[Patriotism]] is a main theme in the story: Webster claims that the Devil cannot take the soul because he cannot claim American citizenship. "And who with better right?" the devil replies, going on to list several wrongs done in the U.S., thereby demonstrating his presence in the U.S.. The devil says "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."

Webster insists on a jury trial as an American right, with Americans for the jury and an American judge. The devil then provides the worst from Webster's perspective (and certainly, they are in Hell) examples of Americans for the judge and jury. In Daniel's speech "He was talking about the things that make a country a country, and a man a man" rather than legal points of the case. For Webster, freedom and independence defines manhood: "Yes, even in hell, if a man was a man, you'd know it."

This theme of American patriotism, freedom and independence is the explanation for Webster's victory: the jury is damned to [[hell]], but they are American and therefore so independent that they can resist the devil.{{citation needed|date=October 2011}}<!--Does the text actually say that anywhere?--> However, in reality many of the jury would not have classed themselves as Americans, as Governor Dale, Morton, Hathorne, and Blackbeard were English, and King Phillip was a Wampanoag. Butler and Girty would have called themselves Americans &ndash; and indeed were Americans &ndash; but they were Loyalists, and Webster might not have intended any but U.S. citizens. Classifying the jurors as "Americans" involves a wider definition, including all who had a part in its history &ndash; even those who lived and died as English subjects before 1775, the Loyalists who actively opposed the creation of the U.S., and those Indians (like King Philip) who interacted with the new civilization. Scratch underlines this definition by saying of the jury "Americans all".

===Slavery===
In his speech, Webster denounces [[History of slavery in the United States|slavery]]. Earlier, he states flatly: "A man is not a piece of property." Later, there is this description: "And when he talked of those enslaved, and the sorrows of slavery, his voice got like a big bell."   Benét acknowledges the evil by having the devil say: "When the first wrong was done to the first [[Native Americans in the United States|Indian]], I was there. When the first slaver put out for the [[Kingdom of Kongo|Congo]], I stood on her deck." As for Webster, "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."

The real Daniel Webster was [[Daniel Webster#Compromise of 1850|willing to compromise]] on slavery in favor of keeping the Union together, disappointing some radical [[Abolitionism in the United States|abolitionists]], but he held that only the preservation of the Union could keep anti-slavery forces active in the slave areas. This desire to end the institution was a mainspring of his support for the Union.

===Treatment of aboriginal Americans===
The story may be seen as sympathetic to the plight of the [[Native Americans in the United States|aboriginal Americans]]. Webster states "If two New Hampshiremen aren't a match for the devil, we might as well give the country back to the Indians." The stranger/Satan remarks that "When the first wrong was done to the first Indian, I was there," which implies the author's acknowledgement that aboriginal Americans were sometimes wronged.  "[[Metacomet|King Philip]], wild and proud as he had been in life, with the great gash in his head that gave him his death wound" is noted as a notorious villain of American history (the historical King Philip ([[Metacomet]]), died from a gunshot to the heart, not a gash to the head).

Yet later on, Daniel Webster's appeal to the jury on "what it means to be American" specifically includes King Philip among "the Americans." This is an anachronism, as the historical Daniel Webster would have been unlikely to express such an opinion.  The narrator also expresses sympathy for King Philip when he tells us that one juror "heard the cry of his lost nation" in Webster's eloquent appeal.

===The devil===
The devil is portrayed as polite and refined. When the devil arrives he is described as "a soft-spoken, dark-dressed stranger," who "drove up in a handsome buggy." The names Benét gives the devil – ''[[Old Scratch|Mr. Scratch]]'' or ''the stranger'' – were both used around New England and other parts of the pre-Civil War United States: "Perhaps Scratch will do for the evening. I'm often called that in [[New England|these regions]]." These terms are taken primarily from "[[The Devil and Tom Walker]]" (1824) by [[Washington Irving]], who usually calls the devil ''Old Scratch''.