The national era. [volume] (Washington [D.C.]) 1847-1860, 1853-06-30

actual payment of them in the last extremity,
and the general care and direction of the i'm
provident and incapable people in his large
acquaintance, rested on him constantly, and
was cheerfully borne and ungrudgingly dis
charged, and, Of course, not a little oetenta-
tiously at the same time. The manners of his
constituency were robust and blunt, and great
deicaoy in his conduct towards them would
have missed its aim, and he had no idea of
reserve toward those who would bear the open
utterance of everything that concerned them.
1t was, accordingly, not at all unusual, nor very
outrageous either, to find him enacting his be-
nevolences in the public streets nor, indeed,
was 1T quite out Of the way for him to rehearse
them to the ungratefu and presumptuous, for
their benefit and his own honor. In the centre
square OF the county town on O public day,
with crowd of the country people around him,
he has been heard to say more than once in
hts loudest tones-"Pm the father Of the coun-
ty. For forty years | have done all its think
ing, and managed all its business. | projected
your public roads, and every great improve
ment in the policy of the community. | have
made you happy at home aud respected abroad
know every man Of you, from the acorn up to
the scrubs that We are. know more law than
your lawyers, and more divinity than your
preachers ! can teach your merchants in their
own business; and there isn't one in a dozen of
you that doesn't owe your good luck to my ad-
wee, and your misiortunes to neglecting it.
am the Oldest Major General 10 the United
States, except General Jackson want moth
ing from you-l belong to myself but want
you TO know what is for your own good, per-
cizelyn
In public debate and conversation, he was
remarkable Tor tact blunt wit, and effective
eloquence besides, he had voice and manner
OF defamation which insured the reception of
anything that he uttered Not a man in a
million has equal command Of the nerves of his
auditors. Think towards him as they might,
they were obliged to think with him, and they
were richly repaid for such submission by the
temporary evelness Of apprehension into which
they were lifted by the casual communion. He
was felt like magnetism while he stood near,
and, when he left, men looked at each other TO
recover themselves, and did or said something
not true, to assert their independence of him
His catch-words, and laugh at his egotism,
or an avenging thrust at his felt superiority,
usually did the duty OF saving appearances;
but the consciousness nevertheless clung and
the effect remained. He did not hold his posi-
ton in mems opinions on the terms that dema-
gogues maintain their reputation with vulgar,
fools. He practced no compliances and fiat
tered nobody. He was too strong too honest,
rs we'll as too proud and unselfsh for the little
arts of little men.
His was frank, confident style of eloquence,
which had much more of the tone of authority
than Of appeal in it. 1t was intended to i'm
part his own convictions in the directest way
The array of his argument was without any
al nd 70
opinions; and he was much less given to that
style of discussion which exhausts the subject
than to that other style which uses up the ad-
versary, He had close, strong grip of his
conclusions; there was nothing wanting in the
and usually nothing lacking in the acceptance
they secured He never knew the embarrass-
ment Of doubt and he never showed its hest
tation He wasn't loaded, squib fashion, with
alternate wads of wet and dry powder When
he exploded an opinion, it had the clear CON-
pact. metallic ring of a straight-cut rife crack.
his range.
1t may have been bis own innate clearness,
or it may have been his large experience, that
taught him the common impertinency Of de-
bate, and led him to prefer the method of de-
cision. However that may be, and however
arrogant it may seem in the telling, 1t was not
very much SO in the act and fact. His auditors
did not feel that they were slavishly surrender
ing their own judgment but, rather that they
had never seen the subject in that light or felt
it with the same force before. He never argued
that thing is 80 and 80, because something
else is 80 and so, which, in its turn, rests upon
something beyond, which is 80 and 80; but
that it is so, percizely, because it cannot be any
other way; and so his argument stood like O
house upon its own foundation, instead of
crazy hut leaning every way upon props, rea-
sonably strong, perhaps, but unreasonably nu-
merous.
TO BE CONTINUED