AND THE SENTIMENT OF UNION 389 



and their unalterable opinion of the soundness of his 

 argument was amply illustrated when at length the 

 crisis came, which he deprecated with such intensity 

 of emotion in his concluding sentences. To some of 

 the senators who listened to the speech, as for instance 

 Thomas H. Benton, it seemed as if the passionate elo- 

 quence of its close concerned itself with imaginary 

 dangers never likely to be realized; but the event 

 showed that Mr. Webster estimated correctly the 

 perilousness of the doctrine against which he was con- 

 tending. For genuine oratorical power, the " Reply 

 to Hayne " is probably the greatest speech that has 

 been delivered since the oration of Demosthenes on 

 the crown. The comparison is natural, as there are 

 points in the American orator that forcibly remind 

 one of the Athenian. There is the fine sense of pro- 

 portion and fitness, the massive weight of argument 

 due to transparent clearness and matchless symmetry 

 of statement, and along with the rest a truly Attic sim- 

 plicity of diction. Mr. Webster never indulged in mere 

 rhetorical flights; his sentences, simple in structure 

 and weighted with meaning, went straight to the 

 mark ; and his arguments were so skilfully framed that, 

 while his most learned and critical hearers were im- 

 pressed with a sense of their collusiveness, no man 

 of ordinary intelligence could fail to understand them. 

 To these high qualifications of the orator was added 

 such a physical presence as but few men have been 

 endowed with. I believe it was Carlyle who said of 

 him, " I wonder if any man can possibly be as great as 

 he looks!" 1 Mr. Webster's appearance was indeed 



1 In his paper on Andrew Jackson and American Democracy, page 270 of this 

 volume, Dr. Fiske refers to the bright blue coat with brass buttons and buff waist- 

 coat as worn by Daniel Webster, which came to be a symbol of Americanism. In 



