PVilliam Campbell Preston. illustrate the perfection of oratorical attain ment, there comes forth spontaneously from our lips the words, " the silver-tongued Pres ton." The only other Southern orators who could vie with him in the field of eloquence were the soul-stirring George McDuffie, the fiery and impetuous William L. Yancey, and the polished and scholarly Hugh S. Legare. Hon. LeroyF. Youmans, of Colum bia, South Carolina, told me that General Wade Hampton said that on one occasion McDuffie spoke of Preston as the finest orator he had ever heard, and on another occasion Preston paid the same high com pliment to McDuffie. In Dr. Baer's address we find related an incident which illustrates Mr. Preston's won drous power as an orator. The writer says, "Dr. A. S. McRae, of Virginia, who heard Preston's great speech in Richmond, at the Whig Log Cabin in 1840, tries forty years afterward to describe the effect of this match less specimen of the stump speech. He says, 'The Log Cabin, erected for the accommo dation of about three thousand persons, was on this occasion filled to its utmost capacity. Attracted by the great fame of the orator, the wealth, the refinement, and intellect of Vir ginia's capital here assembled. The learned and distinguished members of the bar and pulpit, and physicians and editors, mingled with the throng, and added eelat and inspi ration to the occasion. The rain descended in torrents, and yet hundreds of persons, who were unable to gain admittance within the building, remained outside to see and hear what they could through the interstices between the logs. Expectation was aroused to the highest pitch, and when Mr. Preston made his appearance the wildest enthusiasm prevailed, and he was received with an ova tion of cheers, which must have excited with in him the profoundest gratification. After thanking the audience for their kind and flattering reception, he reviewed and eluci dated the issues of the day. But his most miraculous powers of oratory, and that mys
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terious, impressive, almost omnipotent some thing called presence, were not fully exhib ited and felt until he commenced arraigning Mr. Van Buren's administration for extrav agance, malfeasance, and corruption. His mental energies then became fully aroused, and bounded under the burning fire of pas sion, excited by a sense of high public trusts betrayed, ofconstitutional provisions violated, and of dangers which he believed threatened the prosperity of the Union itself, to which his great soul was riveted as with hooks of steel. Tall, large, brawny-shouldered, he drew himself up to his full height. His eagle eyes flashed as with electric fire. His powerful, trumpet-toned voice, propelled by the strong fires from his intellectual forge, rang out upon the vast assembly in a suc cession of rapid, eloquent, startling utter ances, that it seemed could emanate from nothing much less than divine inspiration itself. At the conclusion of this remarkable speech, which lasted two hours and a quarter, the audience arose as one man to their feet and, in their almost frantic delight, sent up shout after shout of applause. They then, in a body, escorted him to his quarters at the Virginia House on Grace Street.' I will not quote more from this enthusiastic chroni cler. This great speech, I may say in pass ing, virtually cost Preston his seat in the Senate." In Dr. Baer's address we also find the following: "Judge Bryan, who knew him well and heard him in his prime, speaks of him ' as the wondrous descriptive orator, whose magic pictures of beauty and glory and majesty had spell-bound breathless sen ates and ravished thronging multitudes, this magician, potent ruler of the stormy pas sions of men, whose breath was agitation.'" An alumnus of the South Carolina Col lege writes: "You have heard, no doubt, of Preston's wig being struck off by a gesture, when pleading for a young friend in the criminal dock. It was not considered an accident, but a master-stroke of the fin
