In the Senate he took at once the part of orator. His voice was not full and sonorous, but sharp and clear. It was penetrating rather than commanding, and yet, when touched by his ardent nature, became sympathetic and even musical. Countenance, body, and gesture all shared the unconscious inspiration of his voice, and he went on, master of his audience, master also of himself. All his faculties were completely at command. Ideas, illustrations, words, seemed to come unbidden and range in harmonious forms,--as in the walls of ancient Thebes each stone took its proper place of its own accord, moved only by the music of a lyre. His fame as a speaker was so peculiar, even before he appeared among us, that it was sometimes supposed he might lack those solid powers without which the oratorical faculty itself exercises only a transient influence. But his speech on this floor in reply to a slaveholding conspirator, now an open rebel, showed that his matter was as good as his manner, and that, while master of fence, he was also master of ordnance. His oratory was graceful, sharp, and flashing, like a cimeter; but his argument was powerful and sweeping, like a battery. You have not forgotten that speech. Perhaps the argument against the sophism of Secession was never better arranged and combined, or more simply popularized for general apprehension. A generation had passed since that traitorous absurdity, fit cover of conspiracy, was exposed. For a while it had shrunk into darkness, driven back by the massive logic of Daniel Webster and the honest sense of Andrew Jackson. “The times have been, That, when the brains were out, the man would die, And there an end; but now they rise again.” As the pretension showed itself anew, our orator undertook again to expose it. How thoroughly he did this, now with historic and now with forensic skill, while his whole effort was elevated by a charming, ever-ready eloquence, aroused to new power by the interruptions he encountered,--all this is present to your minds. That speech passed at once into general acceptance, while it gave its author an assured position in this body. Another speech showed him in a different character. It was his instant reply to the Kentucky Senator,[246]--not then expelled from this body. The occasion was peculiar. A Senator, with treason in his heart, if not on his lips, had just sat down. Our lamented Senator, who had entered the Chamber direct from his camp, rose at once to reply. He began simply and calmly; but, as he proceeded, the fervid soul broke forth in words of surpassing power. On the former occasion he presented the well-ripened fruits of study; but now he spoke with the spontaneous utterance of his natural eloquence, meeting the polished traitor at every point with weapons keener and brighter than his own.