The Carbon advocate. [volume] (Lehighton, Pa.) 1872-1924, 1882-03-25
TOM CORWIN, OF Ohio.
A CELEBRATED CHARACTER.
THE ELOQUENT ORATOR AND IN
lMIlABE WIT.
THE STORY OF HIS EvENTFUL CA
REER TOLD,

doubtless the most brilliant and fas-
cinatii & oratcr this country ever pro-
duced was Tom Corwin of Ohio. Forty
years have rolled away since lie achieved
the most glorious welcomes of his life, yet
his name is remembered to-day by mil
lions who know him only by tradition
In his interesting "reminiscences of the
members of the United States Senate of
1850, Mr.. Johnston, who knew him per-
sonally, describes Corwin as an 'able-
bodied man Of middle height, with swar-
thy hide and open, intelligent counte-
nancei man of great wit and humer
and an enlightened statesman" He was
all this and much more A few weeks
before his death Mr.. Corwin said to Mr..
Wade, II am old and infrm and my race
is nearly run. In the common way of
life, / will soon be numbered with the
dead. I fear, Mr.. Wade, fear men will
remember me only as jester"
Although this fear in Corwin's mind
was not altogether unfounded, yet hap
PLY for his N, mory the judgment of his
people has been vastly different from
what he dreaded.
MIR. Corwin was cont6 6mporaneous with
Webster, Clay, Calhoun, Benton, Adams
and Douglass, and although he won his
very enviable and uudying reputation
upon the same issues. viz, the tariff ma
tional bank, the compromise OF 1850 and
the Mexican war, yet as a statesman be
does not rank with these meu. As au
rator in its strict sense he was superior
10 any of them and his ability to sway a
popular audience it has been said that be
had no equal in this or any other coun-
try. In the elegance and refinement Of
his style. in the beauty a, richness of
his Imagination and in the gracefulness
OF his delivery be was the peer OF Pitt or
Fox of the British parliament. Always
more pleasing than Webster, Clay or Cal.
houn, yet less fercible AMI impressive
than either of these, he takes his place in
history and tradition not as be feared as
n mere jester, but as the most fascinating
orator America ever produced. As Fl. Id.
ing was the father of the English Novel
aud Cbancer of English Poetry, so C,r-
win was the first of our great men who
acquired a national reputation in that
style of oratory peculiar to America
known as stump speaking.
Thomas Benton in his Thirty Years
View" regards Mr.. Corwin as the most
powerful of American stump orators. a
role Of which man of no less culture
thnn John Quincy Adams speaks as re-
quiriug ''mo-e varied talents than any
other style of the rhetorician's art"
1t has been said that nature gave him
perfect voice aud LETT no room Tor train
ing. 1t was soft round and fisxible and
readily adapted itself entirely to the mat
ter he Was delivering. In the short space
of few sentences his voice would tx
pand from a whisper or mild converse
tional tone peculiar to his style of ora-
tory, to lofty climax that would starile
and thrill bis thousands OF admirers In
the rtmotest galleries; from voice as
pure and mellow as the silv,ry tones Of a
bell OF flute to one that would roll and
thunder ard make his hearers tremble at
its power. And all this power was WELD.
ed by bin with perfect ease. His
throughts clothed in most beautiful and
eloquent language, sprang from his brain
without preparation. Il Burns was M
ture's poet, Corwin was Natures orator,
and it matters not how long he liked
his hearers never tired of him nor lett
him, SO fascinating and seductive was his
oratOTy.
Even in his most solid forensic argu-
ments be seemed 10 delight in breaking
out In some lofty flight of fancy, some
rounded period inteneod TO please rather