the outcome of the contests in which they engaged. It is evident that they had many forebodings for the future, but these were always connected with nonconformity to their own political precepts. As this was common even in their own day, there were many gloomy predictions on all sides. The conviction of coming disaster grew stronger and more widespread, but when it came it was not exactly in the manner nor for the reason most frequently and publicly assigned by the orators thus far mentioned. The closer they kept to the enunciation of general principles and general predictions the nearer they were to the final event. When they began to particularize they failed, like all modern prophets. But the prophecies themselves were often sublime and eloquent and a noble part of the literature of the country. They dealt with great and vital themes, and in their composition and utterance were worthy of the vast questions which they discussed.

Daniel
Webster.

XXXIV

NORTHERN ORATORS

THE stream of deliberative oratory which had been rising for half a century reached its high-water mark in the eloquence of Daniel Webster. To trace the cause of his preeminence has been the undertaking of one biographer after another, with the repeated admission that the gift of genius for public speech is the best explanation of his surpassing powers. Certainly there were few artificial aids to his success. A farmer's boy attending the district school, Exeter Academy, and Dartmouth College in those days, might have gone back to the farm without so much learning or cultivation as to make him useless as a tiller of New Hampshire soil. On the other hand, he received more than the other two of the trio with whose names his own is always associated, both of native endowment and of acquired education. These possessions he began to turn to account at an early day. First in the inevitable Fourth of July oration which every town listened to once a year, Hanover, New Hampshire, and Fryeburg, Maine, getting the benefit of his earliest efforts, such as they were. Of them and those which closely followed, it can be said that they were better in promise than in performance, and more suited to the inflated tone of the first quarter of the century than to its close. It was an age when anniversary eloquence was accustomed to mount up with wings as eagles.

Webster shed his academic feathers in the years when he came to be associated with the ablest advocates, jurists, and statesmen in New England. From them he learned that an important fact needs little else than clear statement, and that too much adornment is no ornament to a truth. Henceforth his words no longer vaguely conveyed immature conceptions. He found the strength and worth of common words rightly placed. His statement of a case was often a defence in itself, making further discussion almost needless. In homespun English he would talk to twelve jurymen as a man to his neighbors, or as one of them to another about the particular case in their mutual keeping, to see if everything pointed in one direction. It seemed the most natural thing in the world to agree with this most reasonable man, who made his own conclusion appear to be the only possible one to be gathered from every sign and circumstance. The trial of the Keniston brothers and of Joseph White are illustrative instances.

Forensic

In the superior courts and in the supreme court of the United States he exhibited the larger grasp of principles and a marvellous insight to discuss at once the decisive points of a fact and law. And some- Eloquence. times he added the force of emotional appeal based upon distinctions between right and wrong, not as abstractions, but as vital elements in human conduct. The celebrated Dartmouth College case was an example of such an appeal.

At the age of thirty-one he was sent to Congress. His success in the larger domain of statesmanship was soon a foregone conclusion. The greatness of his intellect had found its adequate field, and to the principles which he

believed most important he devoted his energy and talent. His comprehensive views embraced the welfare of the entire nation; at the same time he attempted only that which was attainable. On such a practical yet broad basis he stood for that which was national and permanent, rather than sectional and temporary.

Defence of the
Union and
Constitution.

In the great debate with Hayne he made it clear to all that the nation is greater than any state and all the states together, a proposition whose truth was subsequently established. The occasion of the second reply was dramatic in the interest which attended its delivery. The dignitaries of many nations and the notables of our own had assembled to listen to the great constitutional lawyer and orator as he made what, all in all, is regarded as the greatest speech of modern times. There is no room here for even an outline of its four hours of argument and illustration in defence of the principles of the Constitution. It was characterized by fairness toward his opponent, but also by consciousness of strength in his own position. He showed that the origin of this government and the source of its power is with the people, anticipating Lincoln's aphorism in these words, which place the originality of their first utterance where it belongs: "It is, sir, the people's Constitution, the people's government, made for the people, made by the people, and answerable to the people." The entire speech is full of profound reasoning. As he himself said of Samuel Dexter, but with deeper meaning: "Aloof from technicality and unfettered by artificial rule a question of constitutional law gave opportunity for that deep and clear analysis, that mighty grasp of principle which so much dis

tinguished his higher efforts. His very statement was argument. His inference seemed demonstration. The earnestness of his own conviction wrought conviction in others. One was convinced because it was gratifying and delightful to think and feel and believe in unison with an intellect of such evident superiority." This was truer of Webster because he was the greater man. The directness of his purpose, the irresistible sweep of his argument, his perspicuity and energy, his vigor of reasoning and felicity of diction, his calm statement and forceful appeal, the power of his voice and the majesty of his presence combined to place him in the foremost ranks of eloquent men and crown him as the chief of American orators.

Oratory.

Halls of legislation have not afforded the only opportunity for the exercise of oratorical gifts. As often as in them our great speakers have found in civic Occasional occasions an inspiration to noble and patriotic sentiments. Such were the anniversaries of the landing of the Pilgrims and of the battle of Bunker Hill to Webster, and the orations pronounced by him were masterpieces of commemorative eloquence. These, however, were the by-product of his oratory.

Everett.

The man who made the occasional address almost the business of his life was Edward Everett. First of all, he was a scholar, delivering lectures upon Greek Edward literature in Cambridge and Boston after three years' residence and study abroad. As editor of the "North American Review" he did much to promote a sort of revival of learning period in the country. At the age of thirty he delivered before an immense audience a characteristic address upon "Circumstances Favorable to