private as well as in public. The exercise of obtaining the proper pitch from the tone of the flute is not as chimerical as it may appear to some. A lengthy discussion creates great demands on the voice. Should a speaker begin on a high key, it would not be long before his vocal organs would give out. An easy, low-toned beginning must therefore be commended. This was the character of the commencement of Daniel Webster's reply to Mr. Hayne.

The scene where Mr. Webster began his celebrated reply to Robert Y. Hayne is thus graphically described by one of his biographers, H. C. Lodge:

"In the midst of the hush of expectation, in that dead silence which is so peculiarly oppressive because it is possible only when many human beings are gathered together, Mr. Webster rose. He had sat impassive and immovable during all the preceding days, while the storm of argument and invective had beaten about his head. At last his time had come, and as he rose and stood forth, drawing himself up to his full height, his personal grandeur and his majestic calm thrilled all who looked upon him. With perfect quietness, unaffected apparently by the atmosphere of intense feeling about him, he said, in a low, even tone [see page 138]. This opening sentence was a piece of consummate art. The simple and appropriate image, the low voice, the calm manner, relieved the strained excitement of the audience, which might have ended by disconcerting the speaker if it had been maintained. Every one was now at his ease; and when the monotonous reading of the resolu

tion ceased, Mr. Webster was master of the situation, and had his listeners in complete control. With breathless attention they followed him as he proceeded. The strong, masculine sentences, the sarcasm, the pathos, the reasoning, the burning appeals to love of state and country, flowed on unbroken. As his feeling warmed, the fire came into his eyes; there was a glow on his swarthy cheek; his strong right arm seemed to sweep away resistlessly the whole phalanx of his opponents, and the deep and melodious cadences of his voice sounded like harmonious organ tones, as they filled the chamber with their music."

From this description we do not think the student can perceive any inclination to the artificial effects in voice or gesture. The easy, self-possessed manner, gradually warming with the subject, is all that is here indicated. Lest, however, the reader should infer, from this graphic portrait of Mr. Webster, that great natural graces of person, which that orator undoubtedly possessed, are indispensable to a high name for eloquence, we give a picture of one who won the sobriquet of "the old man eloquent in the House of Representatives, where a reputation for that talent is secured with the greatest difficulty; this was John Quincy Adams. He is thus described by his biographer, John T. Morse, Jr.:—

66

'Living in the age of oratory, he earned the name of 'the old man eloquent.' Yet he was not an orator in the sense in which Webster, Clay, and Calhoun were orators. He was not a rhetorician; he had neither grace of manner nor a fine presence, neither an imposing

delivery, nor even pleasing tones.

On the contrary, he

was exceptionally lacking in all these qualities. He was short, rotund and bald; about the time when he entered Congress, complaints became frequent, in his diary, of weak and inflamed eyes, and soon these organs became so rheumy that the water would trickle down his cheeks; a shaking of the hand grew upon him to such an extent that in time he had to use artificial assistance to steady it for writing; his voice was high, shrill, liable to break, piercing enough to make itself heard but not agreeable. This hardly seems the picture of an orator, nor was it to any charm of elocution that he owed his influence, but rather to the fact that what he said was well worth the hearing. Listeners

His

were always sure to get a bold and an honest utterance, and often pretty keen words, from him, and he never spoke to an inattentive or to a thin house. power of invective was extraordinary, and he was untiring and merciless in the use of it. winced and cowered before his milder attacks, became sometimes dumb, sometimes furious with mad rage, before his fiercer assaults."

Men

May it not safely be concluded, therefore, that it is the consciousness of the orator that he has mastered his subject in all its details, that he knows precisely where to lay his hand on a vigorous expression, a bold metaphor, a trenchant fact, that prompts and sustains him in his eloquence? Without this power, studied graces, labored elocution and artificial gestures are vain and impotent, but with it appropriate bodily movements will follow of their own free will.

CHAPTER X.

THE DEBATE ON THE TARIFF.-RANDOLPH, HAYNE, CLAY. —ON THE LAND QUESTION.-CLAY, CALHOUN.

To further explain and exemplify the rules and principles herein laid down, we append hereto portions of public debates between orators of wide reputation. Some of the subjects discussed were at one time of a very exciting nature, but we trust the selections can be read with interest and profit, especially as the disputants have long been removed from the scenes of the contests.

One of the best subjects for debate in former times, as well as in our own, was that of the tariff -the principle or power claimed by nations of levying a tax or duty upon goods and materials manufactured or produced in one country and brought for sale to another.

The discussion of this doctrine gave rise in former times, and gives rise to-day, to an almost infinite variety of perplexing and aggravating questions and opposing theories. It affects all classes of citizens, and that is sufficient to make it a subject of universal contention and discussion. It affects the wages of the poor and the profits of the rich, and both parties claim that their doctrine, if tried and

adhered to, will bring prosperity, and the adoption of the other view will cause irretrievable ruin and disaster. It has made and unmade cabinets and administrations, and been the battle-cry of contending parties for many years. At one time it threatened very seriously the existence of the American Union itself. We need give no apology for its introduction, as it not only is a subject upon which every intelligent person should be informed, but exhibits in our country some excellent specimens of argumentative reasoning. It is a subject, too, that is quite different from those heretofore presented, in that there is little scope for the elegant, metaphorical language, specimens of which we have so freely given. Its discussion deals with cold facts and figures; the imagination is kept in the background.

Mr. Randolph, in his speech delivered in 1824, said:

"Sir, when are we to have enough of this tariff question? In 1816 it was supposed to be settled. Only three years thereafter another proposition for increasing it was sent from this house to the Senate, baited with a tax of four cents per pound on brown sugar. It was, fortunately, rejected in that body. In what manner this bill is baited it does not become me to say; but I have too distinct a recollection of the vote in committee of the whole, on the duty upon molasses, and afterwards of the vote in the House on the same question; of the votes of more than one of the States on that question, not to mark it well. I do not say that the change of the vote