The daily dispatch. [volume] (Richmond [Va.]) 1850-1884, 1852-02-28
LENGTH OF SPEECHES.

The Savannah Republican, at the close of
certain very appropriate remarks upon the IN
terminable length of modern Congressional
speeches, says:
Demosthenes and Mirabeau seldom, if ever,
spoke longer than twenty minutes; while
Washington and Franklin required only six or
eight to express all they had TO say. Will not
members pattern after these great men! or,
will they, as some of them do, insist upon
speaking through one, two and three days
Minutes were sufficient for Franklin; but days
are required by modern orators.
We have no means OF ascertainlng the
length of Mirabeau's speeches, since we have
never seen one Of them fully reported. Some
idea may be conceived, however, of those of
Demosthenes, in this particular, since num-
Der of them has come down to US entire. The
Republican certainly labors under a mistake
with regard to that orator. His style, ii is true,
was sententious in the extreme, yet he very
often delivered orations quite as long as the
majority of those which we meet with in the
newspapers of the present day. The famous
speech for the Crown" for instance, contains
nearly twenty thousand words, and had it been
delivered in twenty minutes, would have i'm
piled the pronunciation of one thousand words,
(not English, but Greek words, for the most
part long laundering polysyllables,) by the
minute. This is, Of course, physical impos-
sibility. since the most rapid speaker cannot
pronounce more than three hundred and fifty
English words in minute. A gentleman, at
our elbow, who has been many years re-
porter in the Senate, says that Mr.. Webster
speaks about one hundred and twenty-five
words in a minute, and Mr.. Clay, probably,
about one hundred and fifty. Now, as Demos
themes was noted for the impressive character
of his delivery, it is probable that he did
not speak more rapidly than Mr.. Clay, who is
likewise distinguished by the same quality
If our suggestion be true, he spoke about nine
thousand words an hour, and was rather more
than two hours in delivering the speech under
consideration. Some of his other speeches are
much longer than the speech for the Crown"
Sheridan's famous speech in the Begun
case, was five honrs and half long. Bnrke's
in the case of Warren Hastings, generally, was
nine hours long. Pinkney's great speech on
the Missouri question occupied four hours in
Tie uCllsCIyS Doiooof . Ai opPoaitiOh ~
the tariff of 1924, three and half. MIR. Clay's
great speech on the American system, which
was in answer to that of MIR. Barbour was
more than five hours long, and Webster's ia
nous reply to Hayne occupied about four
hours in the delivery.
We abhor the present system of speaking
in Congress. 1t arises, no doubt, from the
habit of speaking to Bunco mbe, in which every
candidate for public favor chooses to indulge.
The subject is generally exhausted by the first
two or three strong speakers and the rest is all
talk, and talk of very trashy and insupporta-
it is usual for few men to speak on each side
of question, and they are, generally, the
strongest of the body. But here everybody
must make speech, for if a man fail to do it,
be must lose his election in nine cases out of
ten. His constituents say, 1--WE sent him to
Congress, and he has not opened his mouth
since he took his seat" He is compelled,
therefore, to speak in selfdefence, so that his
constituents are to blame and not he. They
complain of the length of the session, and yet
under the very rule which they themselves act
upon, that of Furnishing the representative if he
does not talk, they render it impossible to have
it shorter.
We regard the custom of publishing the de-
bates at length as most unfortunate IN this par
ticular. 1t certainly stimulates long speaking
beyond anything else of which we know aught.
1t is not the length of few great speeches
that protracts a session, but the inordinaie
number of short silly ones.