Something of Men I Have Known / With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective

by Adlai E. Stevenson

XXIX THE LOST ART OF ORATORY

DANIEL WEBSTER'S SPEECHES—HIS PATRIOTIC SERVICE IN FORMULATING THE ASHBURTON TREATY—PRENTISS'S DEFENCE OF THE RIGHT OF MISSISSIPPI TO REPRESENTATION—THE EFFECT OF HIS ELOQUENCE ON A MURDERER—HIS PLEA FOR MERCY TO A CLIENT—WEBSTER WINS AN APPARENTLY HOPELESS CASE—INGERSOLL'S REVIEW OF THE CAREER OF NAPOLEON—HON. ISAAC N. PHILLIPS'S EULOGY UPON ABRAHAM LINCOLN—SENATOR INGALLS'S TRIBUTE TO A COLLEAGUE—A SINGLE ELOQUENT SENTENCE FROM EDWARD EVERETT— SPEECH OF NOMINATION FOR WILLIAM J. BRYAN—MR. BRYAN'S ELOQUENCE —CLOSING SENTENCES OF HIS "PRINCE OF PEACE."

One of the must cultured and entertaining gentlemen I have ever known was the late Gardner Hubbard. His last years were spent quietly in Washington, but earlier in life he was an active member of the Massachusetts bar.

In my conversations with him he related many interesting incidents of Daniel Webster, with whom he was well acquainted. In the early professional life of Hubbard, Mr. Webster was still at the bar; his speech for the prosecution in the memorable Knapp murder trial has been read with profound interest by three generations of lawyers. As a powerful and eloquent discussion of circumstantial evidence, in all its phases, it scarcely has a parallel; quotations from it have found their way into all languages. How startling his description of the stealthy tread of the assassin upon his victim! We seem to stand in the very presence of murder itself:

"Deep sleep had fallen on the destined victim and on all beneath his roof. A healthful old man, to whom sleep was sweet, and the first sound slumbers of the night held him in their soft but strong embrace. The assassin enters through the window, already prepared, into an unoccupied apartment. With noiseless foot he paces the lonely hall, half lighted by the moon; he winds up the ascent of the stairs, and reaches to door of the chamber …. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given, and the victim passes, without a struggle, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe."

The speech throughout shows Webster to have been the perfect master of the human heart,—of its manifold and mysterious workings. What picture could be more vivid than this?

"Such a secret can be safe nowhere. The whole creation of God has neither nook nor corner where the guilty can bestow it and say it is safe. Not to speak of that eye which pierces through all disguises and beholds everything as in the splendor of noon, such secrets of guilt are never safe from detection even by men. True it is, generally speaking, that murder will out. True it is, that Providence hath so ordained, and doth so govern things, that those who break the great law of Heaven by shedding man's blood seldom succeed in avoiding discovery. Meantime the guilty soul cannot keep its own secret. It is false to itself; or rather, it feels an irresistible impulse of conscience to be true to itself. It labors under its guilty possession, and knows not what to do with it. The human heart was not made for the residence of such an inhabitant."

The closing sentences of the speech—which resulted in the conviction and execution of the prisoner—will endure in our literature unsurpassed as an inspiration to duty:

"There is no evil that we cannot either face or fly from but the consciousness of duty disregarded. A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed, or duty violated, is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say, 'the darkness shall cover us,' in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us. We cannot escape their power, nor fly from their presence. They are with us in this life, will be with us at its close; and in that scene of inconceivable solemnity which lies yet farther onward, we shall still find ourselves surrounded by the consciousness of duty, to pain us wherever it has been violated, and to console us so far as God may have given us grace to perform it."

Upon one occasion, when in Boston, Mr. Hubbard and I visited together Faneuil Hall. He pointed out the exact place upon the platform where he saw Mr. Webster stand when he delivered his speech in vindication of his course in remaining in the Cabinet of President Tyler after all his Whig colleagues had resigned. The schism in the Whig ranks, occasioned by the veto of party measures, paramount in the Presidential contest of 1840, and the bitter antagonism thereby engendered between Henry Clay and President Tyler, will readily be recalled. The rupture mentioned occasioned the retirement of the entire Cabinet appointed by the late President Harrison, except Mr. Webster, the Secretary of State. His reasons for remaining were in the highest degree patriotic, and his speech in Faneuil Hall a triumphant vindication. The enduring public service he rendered while in a Cabinet with which he had not partisan affiliation was formulating, in conjunction with the British Minister, the Ashburton treaty. If Mr. Webster had rendered no other public service, this alone would have entitled him to the gratitude of the country. This treaty, advantageous from so many points of view to the United States, adjusted amicably the protracted and perilous controversy—unsettled by the convention at Ghent—of our northeastern boundary, and possibly prevented a third war between the two great English-speaking nations. The words once uttered of Burke could never with truth be spoken of Webster: "He gave to party that which was intended for his country."

Mr. Hubbard insisted that the speech mentioned stood unrivalled in the realm of sublime oratory. He declared that the intervening years had not dimmed his recollection of the appearance of "the God-like Webster" when he exclaimed "The Whig party die! The Whig party die! Then, Mr. President, where shall I go?"

Some years before, I heard Wendell Phillips allude to the above speech in his celebrated lecture upon Daniel O'Connell. He said, when the startling words, "Then, Mr. President, where shall I go?" fell from the lips of the mighty orator, a feeling of awe pervaded the vast assemblage; something akin to an awful foreboding that the world would surely come to an end when there was no place in it for Daniel Webster.

This seems a fitting place to allude to possibly the highest tribute ever paid by one great orator to another—in the loftiest sense, a tribute of genius to genius. Mr. Hubbard told me he was one of the immense audience gathered in Faneuil Hall to ratify the nomination of Harrison and Tyler soon after the adjournment of the Whig National Convention in 1840. Edward Everett presided; and among the speakers were Winthrop, Choate, Webster, and the gifted Sargent S. Prentiss of Mississippi. The eloquence of the last named was a proverb in his day. He had but recently delivered a speech in the House, vindicating his right to his seat as a Representative from Mississippi, which cast a spell over all who heard it, and which has come down to the present generation as one of the masterpieces of oratory. The closing sentence of this wondrous speech—a thousand times quoted—was: "Deny her representation upon this floor; then, Mr. Speaker, strike from yonder escutcheon the star that glitters to the name of Mississippi—and leave only the stripe, fit emblem of her degradation!"

Upon the conclusion of Prentiss's Faneuil Hall speech, just mentioned, amidst a tumult of applause such as even Faneuil Hall had rarely witnessed, Mr. Everett, turning to Mr. Webster, inquired: "Did you ever hear the equal of that speech?" "Never but once," was the deep-toned reply, "and then from Prentiss himself."

Judge Baldwin, his long-time associate at the bar of Mississippi, has given a vivid description of the effect of the power of Mr. Prentiss before the jury in the prosecution of a noted highwayman and murderer in that State:

"Phelps was one of the most daring and desperate of ruffians. He fronted his prosecutor and the court not only with composure, but with scornful and malignant defiance. When Prentiss arose to speak, and for some time afterwards, the criminal scowled upon him a look of hate and insolence. But when the orator, kindling with his subject, turned upon him and poured down a stream of burning invective like lava upon his head; when he depicted the villainy and barbarity of his bold atrocities; when he pictured, in dark and dismal colors, the fate which awaited him, and the awful judgment to be pronounced at another Bar upon his crimes when his soul be confronted with his innocent victims; when he fixed his gaze of concentrated power upon him, the strong man's face relaxed; his eyes faltered and fell; until, at length, unable to bear up under self-conviction, he hid his head beneath the bar, and exhibited a picture of ruffianly audacity cowed beneath the spell of true courage and triumphant genius."

In his early practice in Mississippi, in closing a touching and eloquent appeal to the jury on behalf of a client whose life was trembling in the balance, Prentiss said:

"I have somewhere read that when God in His eternal councils conceived the thought of man's creation, he called to him the three ministers who wait constantly upon the throne, Justice, Truth, and Mercy, and thus addressed them:

"'Shall we make man?'

"Then said Justice, 'O God, make him not, for he will trample upon
Thy laws.'

"Truth made answer also, 'O God, make him not, for he will pollute
Thy sanctuaries.'

"Then Mercy, dropping upon her knees and looking up through her tears, exclaimed, 'O God, make him. I will watch over him through all the dark paths he may have to tread.'

"Then God made man and said to him: 'Thou art the child of Mercy; go and deal in mercy with thy brother.'"

In speaking of Mr. Webster's marvellous power over a jury, Mr. Hubbard told me that he was present during the trial of a once celebrated divorce case in one of the courts of Boston. The husband was the complainant, and the alleged ground the one of recognized sufficiency in all countries. Mr. Webster was the counsel for the husband; Rufus Choate for the wife. As an advocate, the latter has had few equals, no superiors, at the American bar. In the case mentioned, with a distressed woman for a client, what was dearer than life, her reputation, in the balance, it may well be believed that the wondrous powers of the advocate were in requisition to the utmost.

At the conclusion of Choate's speech, as Mr. Hubbard assured me, the case of the injured husband appeared hopeless. It seemed impossible that such a speech could be successfully answered.

The opening sentence, in deep and measured tones, of Webster in reply, the prelude to an unrivalled argument and to victory, was:

"Saint Paul in the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter of his wondrous Epistle to the Romans says: 'O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?' You alone, gentlemen, can deliver this wretched man from the body of this dead woman!"

What in word-painting can exceed the following from an address by Robert G. Ingersoll?

"A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon—a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, almost fit for a dead deity— and gazed upon the sarcophagus of black Egyptian marble where rest the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

"I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I saw him at Toulon; I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris; I saw him at the head of the army in Italy; I saw him crossing the bridge at Lodi with the tricolor in his hand; I saw him in Egypt in the shadow of the Pyramids; I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags; I saw him at Marengo, at Ulm, and at Austerlitz; I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves; I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster—driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris—clutched like a wild beast—banished to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and Fortune combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king, and I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.

"I thought of the orphans and widows he had made, of the tears that had been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition; and I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes; I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the rays of the autumn sun; I would rather have been that poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky, with my children about my knee and their arms about me; I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless silence of the dreamless dust, than have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder."

In his eloquent eulogy upon Abraham Lincoln, my neighbor and friend,
Hon. Isaac N. Phillips, said:

"He lived with Nature and learned of her. He toiled, but his toil was never hopeless and degrading. His feet were upon the earth but the stars shining in perennial beauty were ever above him to inspire contemplation. He heard the song of the thrush, and the carol of the lark. He watched the sun in its course. He knew the dim paths of the forest, and his soul was awed by the power of the storm."

The closing sentences of Senator Ingalls's tribute to a departed colleague were sombre indeed:

"In the democracy of Death all men are equal. There is neither rank, nor station, nor prerogative, in the republic of the grave. At that fatal threshold the philosopher ceases to be wise, and the song of the poet is silent. There Dives relinquished his riches and Lazarus his rags; the creditor loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation; the proud man surrenders his dignity, the politician his honors, the worldling his pleasures. Here the invalid needs no physician, and the laborer rests from unrequited toil. Here at last is Nature's final decree of equity. The wrongs of time are redressed, and injustice is expiated. The unequal distribution of wealth and honor, capacity, pleasure, and opportunity, which makes life so cruel and inexplicable a tragedy, ceases in the realms of Death. The strongest has there no supremacy, and the weakest needs no defence. The mightiest captain succumbs to the invincible adversary who disarms alike the victor and the vanquished."

In his day Edward Everett was the most gifted of American orators. His style, however, to readers in "these piping times of peace," seems a trifle stilted. What orator of the twentieth century would attempt such a sentence as the following from Everett's celebrated eulogy upon Washington:

"Let us make a national festival and holiday of his birthday; and ever, as the twenty-second of February returns, let us remember that, while with these solemn and joyous rites of observance we celebrate the great anniversary, our fellow-citizens on the Hudson, on the Potomac, from the Southern plains to the Western lakes, are engaged in the same offices of gratitude and love. Nor we, nor they alone; beyond the Ohio, beyond the Mississippi, along that stupendous trail of immigration from the East to the West, which, bursting into States as it moves westward, is already threading the Western prairies, swarming through the portals of the Rocky Mountains and winding down their slopes, the name and the memory of Washington on that gracious night will travel with the silver queen of heaven through sixty degrees of longitude, nor part company with her till she walks in her brightness through the Golden Gate of California, and passes serenely to hold midnight court with her Australian stars. There and there only in barbarous archipelagos, as yet untrodden by civilized man, the name of Washington is unknown; and there, too, when they swarm with enlightened millions, new honors shall be paid with ours to his memory."

In my judgment the greatest living orator is William J. Bryan. I have never known a more gifted man. A thorough scholar—having like Lord Bacon taken all knowledge for his province—a fearless champion of what he deems the right, he is in the loftiest sense "without fear and without reproach."

In introducing him to an immense audience in Bloomington when he was first a candidate for the Presidency, I said:

"The National Democracy in the Chicago convention selected for the Presidency a distinguished statesman of the great Northwest. For the first time in more than one hundred years of our history, a candidate for the great office has been taken from a State lying west of the Mississippi.

"In the nomination of our standard-bearer, the convention builded better than it knew. Each passing hour has but emphasized the wisdom of its choice. Truly it has been said: 'When the times demand the man, the man appears.' The times demanded a great leader—the great leader has appeared! His campaign is the marvel of the age. From the Atlantic seaboard, two thousand miles to the westward, his eloquent words have cheered the despondent, given new hopes and aspirations to the people, touched the hearts of millions of his countrymen. In advocating his election we have kept the faith. We have not departed from the teachings of our fathers. We sacredly preserve the ancient landmarks—the landmarks of all previous Democratic conventions."

Rarely has a speech been uttered so effective in its immediate results as that of Mr. Bryan in the Democratic National Convention of 1896. The occasion was one never to be forgotten. When Mr. Bryan began his speech he had not been mentioned as a candidate for the Presidency; at its close there was no other candidate. The closing sentences of the memorable speech were:

"Our ancestors, when but three millions in number, had the courage to declare their political independence of every other nation; shall we, their descendants, when we have grown to seventy millions, declare that we are less independent than our forefathers? No, my friends, that will never be the verdict of our people. Therefore, we care not upon what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is good, but that we cannot have it until other nations help us, we reply that, instead of having a gold standard because England has, we will restore bimetallism, and then let England have bimetallism because the United States has it. If they dare to come out in the open field and defend the gold standard as a good thing, we will fight them to the uttermost. Having behind us the productive masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, the laboring interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: 'You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.'"

The closing sentences of his "Prince of Peace" have been read in all languages:

"But this Prince of Peace promises not only peace but strength. Some have thought His teachings fit only for the weak and the timid and unsuited to men of vigor, energy, and ambition. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Only the man of faith can be courageous. Confident that he fights on the side of Jehovah, he doubts not the success of his cause. What matters it whether he shares in the shouts of triumph? If every word spoken in behalf of truth has its influence and every deed done for the right weighs in the final account, it is immaterial to the Christian whether his eyes behold victory or whether he dies in the midst of the conflict.

'Yea, though thou lie upon the dust,
When they who helped thee flee in fear,
Die full of hope and manly trust,
Like those who fell in battle here.
Another hand thy sword shall wield,
Another hand the standard wave,
Till from the trumpet's mouth is pealed
The blast of triumph o'er thy grave.'

"Only those who believe attempt the seemingly impossible and, by attempting, prove that one with God can chase a thousand and two can put ten thousand to flight. I can imagine that the early Christians who were carried into the arena to make a spectacle for those more savage than the beasts, were entreated by their doubting companions not to endanger their lives. But, kneeling in the centre of the arena, they prayed and sang until they were devoured. How helpless they seemed and, measured by every human rule, how hopeless was their cause! And yet within a few decades the power which they invoked proved mightier than the legions of the emperor, and the faith in which they died was triumphant o'er all that land. It is said that those who went to mock at their sufferings returned asking themselves, 'What is it that can enter into the heart of man and make him die as these die?' They were greater conquerors in their death than they could have been had they purchased life by a surrender of their faith.

"What would have been the fate of the Church if the early Christians had had as little faith as many of our Christians now have? And, on the other hand, if the Christians of to-day had the faith of the martyrs, how long would it be before the fulfilment of the prophecy that every knee shall bow and every tongue confess?

"Our faith should be even stronger than the faith of those who lived two thousand years ago, for we see our religion spreading and supplanting the philosophies and creeds of the Orient.

"As the Christian grows older he appreciates more and more the completeness with which Christ fills the requirements of the heart and, grateful for the peace which he enjoys and for the strength which he has received, he repeats the words of the great scholar, Sir William Jones:

'Before thy mystic altar, heavenly truth,
I kneel in manhood, as I knelt in youth.
Thus let me kneel, till this dull form decay,
And life's last shade be brightened by thy ray.'"