His speeches are characterized always by plain and direct purpose, sound argument and happy illustration, and often by sparkling repartee and passages of stirring eloquence. Some of his most effective efforts have been made without previous preparation. In public life his distinguishing characteristics have been fidelity to friends and party, and the courage and intrepidity with which, regardless of considerations personal to himself, his opinions have been maintained.
In public or in private life, the integrity and purity of his character have never been questioned.
To show how Mr. Dickinson is regarded by his political friends, we quote a few paragraphs from a sketch of the man in a New York journal friendly to him:
"Mr. Dickinson is, in the true and democratic sense of the term, a national man. And while there have been, and still are, a few, both North and South, who have believed, and do believe, that emergencies may arise in the affairs of our country, when it would be better to 'let the Union slide,' his course will show that in his belief, under no possible or conceivable circumstances, could a greater misfortune happen to our country and the cause of humanity itself, than a rupture or dismemberment of the American Union. This conviction has animated and controlled all his conduct as a man and a public servant. In the elements of his character, there is no neutrality or non-committal; his leading peculiarities are point and positiveness—there is nothing negative about the man, his convictions are all absolute, and they are always vitalized into practical efficiency. Hence no man has warmer or more attached personal friends, and none more bitter political opponents, than he. The Van Buren men of New York, who defeated Gen. Cass, in 1848, by their treachery to the democratic party, have acted as though they thought his very political existence was a standing rebuke and shame for their treasonable desertion; and hence they have spared no pains or efforts to vilify his character by the grossest misrepresentations. Yet notwithstanding these efforts of a false and disappointed faction, the people of the country feel, that there is no man to whom its true friends are more indebted than to him, for his fearless course in stemming the torrent of fanaticism and disunion. When the Abolitionists raised the 'Black Flag' of treason in the North, and the decree went forth from the immediate friends and abettors of the Van Burens, that every man in the State of New York who did not join with them in their insane attempts to tear down the constitution of the country, and trample its sanctions and compromises in the dust, in order to invade the constitutionally guaranteed rights of the South, should be tabooed and turned over to the mercies of the political guillotine, Mr. D. threw himself into the van of the opposition and dared to beard the lion in his den; and proclaimed in stern and patriotic tones of defiance, that for himself, 'he knew no North, no South, no East and no West—nothing but his country.'"
One of the editors of the "Dublin Nation," while travelling in this country, gave the subjoined sketch of Mr. Dickinson, as he found him in an American court:
"I learned that a court of assize was sitting just then in the town; I was quite glad of an opportunity of seeing for myself a sight supposed to be such a compound of the farce and the row, 'an American court of justice in the rural districts.' I found out the courthouse; a dilapidated old building, crowning the rising ground at one end of the principal street. I entered the hall. On one side a rickety door, with a half moon grating near the top, marked the apartment (about twelve feet by fifteen), which served as the district jail. It was strong enough, probably, to be any barrier to the liberty of a lame ewe; yet it was large enough and strong enough for the requirements of the locality! I ascended the stairs, and, pushing open a door on the first landing, I found myself in 'court.' Accuse me not, oh hilarious reader, if I herein depart from all precedent and prefer not fun to fact; if I declare that I saw no revolvers, no bowie knives, heard neither cursing nor squabbling; possibly these are to be seen, and I may see them ere I return to Ireland—but here, at least, I declare, that I saw gravity and dignity on the bench and at the bar; order and decorum in the audience. The latter I attribute to the circumstance that there were no policemen to disturb the quiet of the place, by perpetually bawling out 'silence!'—an intolerable nuisance which we have to endure. The room was about thirty feet square and fifteen in height. At the end opposite the entrance was the bench; in the middle of the apartment an oval shaped space was railed off on the floor; one end reaching to the desk (immediately under the bench), at which sat the county clerk and the sheriff. The oval space was alloted to the professors of the law. On each side, rising gradually to the rear, were rows of seats, or rather pews, for the auditors. The jury sat in one of these 'pews,' immediately on the left of the judge. Two large stoves, whose flue-pipes cut sundry capers in the air—with the laudable intention of giving us all the benefit possible of the heat they contained—kept the place comfortably warm. Occasionally the high sheriff would walk quietly down to one of the stoves, open the door, poke up the fire, and put in a fresh log. Accustomed from childhood to associate so largely the judicial functions with a horse-hair wig, and a black silk gown—indeed, rather inclined to think that these constituted the judge, and that without them there could be no law in the land, it seemed hard to believe that the gentleman on the bench before me, in civilian costume, could be a real genuine judge and no mistake....
"Yet I do not know that I ever saw in the same official position more dignified demeanor. I never saw a judge listened to with more deference, and treated with more respect than in this instance, in this same village court, in the 'wilds' of western New York, though Judge Balcom wears his own hair—black as Morven's—and came to court without the blowing of even so much as a penny whistle.
"Seated within the railed space—his arms folded on his breast, his face raised upward in attentive listening attitude—was a man who instantly struck me as being singular among the throng around him. He might be sixty years of age; a powerfully built frame and expansive chest gave indication of physical strength and energy; but it was the face that impressed me. It was one of those that Rembrandt loved to paint; the grave serenity of strength in repose; the warm glow of life's autumn evening upon a countenance expressive of quiet dignity and intellectual power. The spacious dome of a massive head was covered with silvery—nay, snow-white hair, lending a venerable, though not an aged, aspect to the man. He was very plainly dressed; the blue cloth body-coat, with brass buttons, was perfectly American; the large high shirt-collar standing out from the lower part of a face entirely shaven; and a black silk neckerchief loosely fastened around in the very carelessness of effect or appearance, was in perfect keeping with the simplicity of his tout ensemble. This was the Honorable D. S. Dickinson, the contemporary in politics of Webster, who found in him, in many a passage of arms, a foeman worthy of his steel. For some years Mr. Dickinson has remained in retirement from active public life, notwithstanding many efforts to induce him to reënter the arena. Yet it is shrewdly suspected that his counsel is not seldom sought and acted upon by the great ones of that party of which he once was so active and able a leader."
We now proceed to make a few extracts from Mr. Dickinson's public speeches. Here is an extract upon disunion: