Take him for all in all, he was not only the greatest orator this country has ever known, but in the history of eloquence his name will stand with those of Demosthenes and Cicero, Chatham and Burke.--Henry Cabot Lodge. It may be said that the style of Webster is pre-eminently distinguished by manliness. The intellect and moral manliness of Webster underlies all his great orations and speeches; and this plain force of manhood, this sturdy grapple with every question that comes before his understanding for settlement, leads him to reject all the meretricious aids and ornaments of mere rhetoric, and is prominent, among the many exceptional qualities of his large nature, which have given him a high position among the prose-writers of his country as a consummate master of English style.--Edwin P. Whipple. His broad, wise statesmanship is to be the ample and refreshing shade, his character the bright and breezy presence, in which all the members of this great and illustrious Republic may meet and sit down and feast together.--H. N. Hudson. Contents. Defence of the Kennistons The Dartmouth College Case First Settlement of New England The Bunker Hill Monument The Reply to Hayne The Murder of Captain Joseph White The Constitution Not a Compact Between Sovereign States Speech at Saratoga Eulogy on Mr. Justice Story Biographical Notes Defence of the Kennistons. Gentlemen of the Jury,--It is true that the offence charged in the indictment in this case is not capital; but perhaps this can hardly be considered as favorable to the defendants. To those who are guilty, and without hope of escape, no doubt the lightness of the penalty of transgression gives consolation. But if the defendants are innocent, it is more natural for them to be thinking upon what they have lost by that alteration of the law which has left highway robbery no longer capital, than upon what the guilty might gain by it. They have lost those great privileges in their trial, which the law allows, in capital cases, for the protection of innocence against unfounded accusation. They have lost the right of being previously furnished with a copy of the indictment, and a list of the government witnesses. They have lost the right of peremptory challenge; and, notwithstanding the prejudices which they know have been excited against them, they must show legal cause of challenge, in each individual case, or else take the jury as they find it. They have lost the benefit of assignment of counsel by the court. They have lost the benefit of the Commonwealth's process to bring in witnesses in their behalf. When to these circumstances it is added that they are strangers, almost wholly without friends, and without the means for preparing their defence, it is evident they must take their trial under great disadvantages.