DANIEL WEBSTER, 1782–1852.
"Who does not rank him as a great American author? Against the maxim of Mr. Fox his speeches read well, and yet were good speeches—great speeches in delivery. So critically do they keep the right side of the line which parts eloquence from rhetoric, and so far do they rise above the penury of mere debate, that the general reason of the country has enshrined them at once, and forever, among our classics."—Rufus Choate's Eulogy on Webster.
"Read his works, and feel what a blessing civil and religious liberty is. Read them and feel what a blessing it is to live under a free government. Read them; and if, which God forbid, the obligations of the Constitution of your country hang loosely on you, rivet them with his thoughts. His giant efforts are embalmed in our school books, enshrined with the speeches of Burke, Sheridan and Chatham, to animate and inspire the youth of our country."
"He has poured the measureless wealth of his own intellect into all the schools and colleges of the land. There is scarcely a child in the country, twelve years old, whose mind has not been enriched by his speeches and orations. His speeches are destined to do more to promote the great objects of education, to form correct habits of thinking and speaking, and to put the rising American race in possession of a chastened, eloquent, powerful, literature, than any other instrumentality of the nineteenth century."—Rev. Hubbard Winslow.
"His speech had strength, force and dignity; his composition was clear, rational, strengthened by a powerful imagination—in his great orations 'the lightning of passion running along the iron links of argument.' The one lesson which they teach to the youth of America is self-respect, a manly consciousness of power, expressed simply and directly—to look for the substantial qualities of the thing, and utter them distinctly as they are felt intensely. This was the sum of the art which Webster used in his orations."—E. A. Duyckinck.
"Webster's style is remarkable for clearness of statement. It is singularly emphatic. It is impressive rather than brilliant, and occasionally rises to absolute grandeur. It is evidently formed on the higher English models; and the reader conjectures his love of Milton from the noble simplicity of his language. Independent of their logical and rhetorical merit, these orations are invaluable from the nationality of their tone and spirit. They awaken patriotic reflection and sentiment, and are better adapted to warn, to enlighten, and to cheer the consciousness of the citizen, than any American works, of a didactic kind, yet produced."—H. T. Tuckerman.
"He was probably the grandest looking man of his time. Wherever he went, men turned to gaze at him; and he could not enter a room without having every eye fastened upon him. His face was very striking, both in form and color. The eyebrow, the eye, and the dark and deep socket in which it glowed, were full of power. His smile was beaming, warming, fascinating; lighting up his whole face like a sudden sunrise. His voice was rich, deep, and strong, filling the largest space without effort, and when under excitement, rising and swelling into a violence of sound, like the roar of a tempest."—George S. Hilliard.
