It is very true that our style of speaking is too diffusive. Our orators too often seem to be speaking against time, and to be utterly incapable of condensation. It has been observed, that it would take three or four of the great speeches of Demosthenes to equal in length a speech which a second rate member of Congress would deliver _de Lana Caprina_. I am well aware that this style is frequently the result of confused ideas, and an indistinct conception of the subject under discussion. But it arises in part from the nature of our republican institutions. Most of the speeches delivered in Congress are really intended for the constituency of those who deliver them, and not to produce an effect in Washington. They are consequently of an elementary character, long and labored too, to suit the pleasure and the capacity of the people. From this cause, combined with others, it has happened that the division of labor in our deliberative bodies has never been so complete as in the British Parliament. When particular subjects are brought up in that body, particular men are immediately looked to for information, and for the discussion of them. Men who are not supposed to be qualified on them, are coughed down when they interrupt the body with their crude remarks. But in our own country, particular subjects have not been thus appropriated to particular individuals; and when a matter of importance is brought up for discussion, all are anxious to speak on it, and it is not to be wondered at that the clouded intellect of some of the speakers, together with the great courtesy of the body, should sometimes lead on to long-winded and tiresome effusions. No body in ancient times displayed so much patience and courtesy towards its speakers as the Senate of Rome, and we are told that the speeches delivered before the Roman Senate were much longer than those delivered before the _Comitia_.--There is no body in modern times which displays more impatience than the French Chambers, and accordingly you find generally that the speeches delivered before them are very short. But whatever may be the cause of this tendency to prolixity in many of our speakers, we may console ourselves with the reflection that it is not the fault of all--that there are some now in the United States who can compare with any in the world--that the eloquence of our country is decidedly advancing, and will no doubt shed a much brighter lustre over our future history, if we can only preserve our federal system in all its original purity and perfection.]