The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1 — John Shaqi
The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1Webster, Daniel
History
The Works of Daniel Webster, Volume 1
Webster, Daniel
United States -- Politics and government -- 1815-1861
when this enlargement became necessary, is brought out with great skill
and discrimination. The appeal to the Southern States, whether the
government under which the Union has grown and prospered is a
blessing or a curse to the country, is a burst of the highest
eloquence. The allusion and apostrophe to Washington will be rehearsed
by the generous youth of America as long as the English language is
spoken on this side of the Atlantic Ocean.
This great oration, perhaps not premeditated so carefully, as far as the
mere language is concerned, as those of an earlier date with which we
have classed it, is not inferior to either of them in the essentials of
patriotic eloquence. It belongs, in common with them, to a species of
oratory neither forensic, nor parliamentary, nor academical; and which
might perhaps conveniently enough be described by the epithet which we
have just applied to it,--the patriotic. These addresses are strongly
discriminated from the forensic and the parliamentary class of speeches,
in being from the nature of the case more elaborately prepared. The
public taste in a highly cultivated community would not admit, in a
performance of this kind, those marks of extemporaneous execution,
which it not only tolerates, but admires, in the unpremeditated efforts
of the senate and the bar. The latter shines to greatest advantage in
happy impromptu strokes, whether of illustration or argument; the former
admits, and therefore demands, the graceful finish of a mature
preparation.[10]
It is not, indeed, to be supposed, that an orator like Mr. Webster is
slavishly tied down, on any occasion, to his manuscript notes, or to a
_memoriter_ repetition of their contents. It may be presumed that in
many cases the noblest and the boldest flights, the last and warmest
tints thrown upon the canvas, in discourses of this kind, were the
unpremeditated inspiration of the moment of delivery. The opposite view
would be absurd, because it would imply that the mind, under the high
excitement of delivery, was less fertile and creative than in the repose
of the closet. A speaker could not, if he attempted it, anticipate in
his study the earnestness and fervor of spirit induced by actual contact
with the audience; he could not by any possibility forestall the
sympathetic influence upon his imagination and intellect of the
listening and applauding throng. However severe the method required by
the nature of the occasion, or dictated by his own taste, a speaker like
Mr. Webster will not often confine himself "to pouring out fervors a
week old."
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