REMARKS ON THE ELOQUENCE OF DEBATE.

In no other nation, either ancient or modern, have the opportunities for the cultivation of eloquence, especially the eloquence of public debate, been so numerous and favorable, or the inducements to aim at excellence in it so strong and inspiring, as in the United States. Our schools for improvement, in this noble and splendid art, at once the instrument of ambition, and the defender of right, the prop of power, and the awarder of fame, are almost countless. Congress,-our great national school of eloquence, the legislatures of four-and-twenty states and three territories, and the courts of justice, of every rank and description, with which the country is abundantly studded, constitute, perhaps, less than a moiety of our institutions, whose administration is carried on, and whose business is transacted chiefly by the delivery of set orations or extemporaneous addresses, and the practice of debate. In all our grammar-schools, academies, colleges, and universities, the art of speaking is cultivated as a regular exercise. Our large cities abound in lyceums and institutes, where lectures are delivered and discussions held, in debating and declaiming clubs of every imaginable sort, and in Bible, Tract, Missionary, Emancipation, Temperance, Colonization, and Education Societies and Conventions, whose spirit is maintained and their ends promoted by the delivery of addresses, if their very existence does not depend on it. Nor is this all. There is scarcely in the Union a town, of a thousand or fifteen hundred inhabitants, where some nursery of public speaking does not exist. Add, our innumerable political meetings, where harangues are as necessary and as much in vogue, as the sound of the trumpet and the drum in battle, and our thousands of stationary and itinerant divines, most of whom preach twice or three times, and a large proportion of them five or six times a week,-contemplate this unparalleled and soul-stirring display of practical elocution, and who can deny that the Americans are the most "talking and speech-making" race, that the world has produced! Nor are reasons wanting to account for this eager discipline in the art of address. We are proverbially enamored of place and power-much more so, as a people, notwithstanding our professed simplicity and republicanism, than any other now existing, or that ever has existed. And it is by eloquence, in its various forms, that these honors are perhaps most certainly attained. The liberal spirit of our institutions, laying open to all the high places of distinction and trust, renders them objects of aspiration to all; and the art of popular oratory often secures them. Hence the high estimation, in which that art is held by us, the ardor and assiduity, with which it is cultivated, and the extensive scale of our arrangements for becoming accomplished in it.

Nor have our labors been fruitless. True; we have not yet produced a Demosthenes or a Cicero; nor did Greece and Rome, until after many centuries of toil and trial. Perhaps our orators have not yet reached the standard of Chatham or Burke, Sheridan, Fox, or Canning. Yet this is a point not altogether settled. Sundry causes have hitherto existed, to prevent a fair comparison, in this respect, between England and the United States. There is good reason, however, to believe, that the ascendancy of the British orators over some of the American, if indeed they had any, was much more in report and fancy, than in reality. But, be this as it may, one thing is certain; the United States contain a much greater number of good second and third-rate speakers, as well in debate, as in forensic, pulpit, and popular oratory, than any other nation now in existence, or known to history, whatever may be the amount and condition of its inhabitants, or the character of its institutions. Notwithstanding the rude gibes and impudent calumnies of certain foreigners, signalized more by ignorance and self-conceit, than by taste or judgement, America is already an eloquent nation. And, if it be true to its own interest, fame, and fortune, it will not only bear away the palm from modern rivals, but will eclipse the glory, and humble the pride, of antiquity itself, in the art of speaking. Though this is but prediction now, and may perhaps be accounted, by some persons, as probable and boastful, time will turn it to fact, and history record it among the triumphs of mind. The ground of the prediction has been already stated. While the people of the United States are unsurpassed in their native fitness for oratory, they are unrivaled in their opportunities and motives to excel in it. Calculating, therefore, on the well-known connexion of cause and effect, as relates to human events, the belief that they will thus excel

rests on a fair inference.

Eloquence, like other arts, is but the application of settled principles, its object being to enlighten and convince, move and persuade. Those principles are founded in the constitution of man; and unless the art be studied and practised in conformity to them, it cannot be brought to the perfection it is susceptible of, or be made to turn human nature to wax, and mould it, for the time, in feeling, sentiment, and action, to the purposes of the speaker. Had not the orators conformed, in their speeches, to these principles, neither would Demosthenes have impelled the Athenians to "march against Philip,"-Cicero, though of an origin comparatively obscure, have risen and ruled the Roman Senate, humbled the hardened audacity of Cataline, and driven that bold conspirator from the city,—Pitt, the elder, have made a corrupt and packed ministry quail under his rebuke,-nor John Adams, when speaking as man has rarely spoken, in behalf of Independence, have raised the members of Congress from their seats." Our present design is to notice some of the leading principles of eloquence, according to which, the art, to be successful, must be studied and practised, to make it appear that those principles constitute a part of the philosophy of mind, without a correct knowledge of which they cannot be understood, and then to show how far certain speeches, recently delivered in Congress, conform to them.*

ELOQUENCE is the appropriate expression of the condition and operations of the mind, and constitutes the means, by which one mind acts on another, and, more or less, assimilates the condition of it to its own. More technically, eloquence might be defined, the language or manifestation of the mental faculties, by which the state of the faculties of one individual is made to conform to the state of those of another. The design of public eloquence is to make the minds of an audience harmonize, in all respects, with the mind of the speaker; to make them feel with him, think with him, resolve with him, and, if necessary, act with him, and thus surrender themselves entirely to his control. But, for the production of this effect, it is requisite that the expression of the faculties, which the orator wishes in particular to excite and control, in his audience, be made clear and forcible by himself, in substance and manner, no less than in language. His address must be not merely a personation of those faculties; it must be a living incorporation of them instinct with their spirit. Nothing short of this will insure to him the influence, at which he aims. Does he wish to inform and enlighten his audience, and send conviction to their minds, respecting any point he is discussing? He must present appropriate and relevant truths to them, fully, perspicuously, and forcibly. He must state facts to them, without equivocation or disguise, arrange them in their natural order, exhibit the relations they bear to each other, draw legitimate inferences from them, and express himself coolly but energetically, in the accurate language of judgement and reason. Does he wish his audience to be grave? He must be himself grave, in matter, manner, and diction. Is he desirous that they should be solemn? He must be solemn himself, and they will follow his example. Merry? He must be facetious. Sorrowful? He must remember the maxim, si vis me flere, dolendum est primum tibi ipsi. Does he wish to soften, melt, and persuade them? His words must distil on them with a dewy mildness, and his look and deportment be soft and assuasive. But, if his aim be to render them indignant at criminality or wrong, or to rouse their resentment against injury, insult, or oppression, his expression must change, in correspondence with his purpose. He should assume the air and attitude of detestation and defiance, or even of assault; his eyes should flash, and his countenance gleam with the outbreaking of his inward fires; his voice should be stern, deep, and sonorous, and should pour forth the burning and resolute language of passion and resistance, if not of battle and vengeance. Thus should he, in all cases, as far as possible, render his words and his utterance of them "an echo to their meaning," and make his look and action a mirror to reflect the feelings he would awaken. But we find it impossible to express ourselves with definiteness and perspicuity, on this subject, unless we avail ourselves of the principles, and adopt the language, of the only scheme of mental philosophy, whose tenets we either believe

*We shall select for our purpose the four following productions:

Speech of Mr. M'Duthe, on the subject of the Removal of the Deposites, December 19, 1833. Remarks of the Hon. J. C. Calhoun, delivered in the Senate of the United States, on the subject of the Removal of the Deposites from the Bank of the United States. January 13, 1834.

Speech of the Hon. Horace Binney, on the question of the Removal of the Deposites. Delivered in the House of Representatives, January, 1834.

Report of Mr. Webster, as Chairman of the Committee of Finance, to the Senate of the United States, on the question of the Removal of the Deposites, February 5, 1834.

or understand-we mean РHRENOLOGY. Begging the kind indulgence of the reader, therefore, and soliciting his unprejudiced consideration of the matter we may offer, we shall enter on our task, without further remark.

It has been already observed, that the object of the orator is so to act on the human mind, as to excite and mould it at pleasure, and thus control it to his purposes. This, however, he cannot do, unless he possess a knowledge of its constitution; its constitution consisting in an aggregate of many faculties, can be understood, like other compounds, only by analysis; and in the principles and manner of that analysis Phrenology alone instructs us. Did our space permit us, we should be gratified to avail ourselves of the lights of that science, in giving such an exposition of the constitution of the mind, as might be useful both in preparing and understanding this discussion. Instead, however, of entering into any details on this point ourselves, we must refer the reader for the information required, to the works of Spurzheim and Combe, which are now circulating extensively through the country, and which should be studied by every one, who is anxious to attain a correct knowledge of man, as a moral, intellectual, and social being. Legislators, in a special manner, should be thoroughly informed on this subject. Unless they possess a competent knowledge of the mental machinery of their fellow-men, it is impossible for them either to make on them the requisite impressions, in their debates and addresses, or to prepare suitable laws for their government.

Phrenology teaches us that the human mind is composed of three classes of faculties, differing from each other in their grade no less than in their character. These are the animal, the intellectual, and the moral; the two latter of which, being of the higher order, are designed to direct the former, and control it in its action. This they should be made to do, in all cases, and in none more strictly than in the business of debate in deliberative assemblies. In this way alone can wise and salutary measures be devised and adopted. That the higher faculties should control the lower, is a law of nature. Whatever practice conforms to this law, is sure to succeed, and become productive of something useful, while nonconformity and opposition to it fail, or do mischief. Legislators, therefore, neither appear in a dignified and becoming attitude, nor serve effectually the interests of their country, by indulging their animal faculties, and allowing them to take an ascendancy in parliamentary contests. But that this is too often done, to the breach of order, and the injury of the best interests of the commonwealth, the practice of our legislative bodies sufficiently proves. Nor is this all.

The newspapers and many of the pamphlets of the day do immense mischief, on the same ground. By an exercise of Secretiveness, deeply culpable, they abound in falsehood; and, uniting that faculty with Combativeness and Destructiveness, they inundate the country with floods of the foulest defamation and abuse. On subjects of a political nature, their columns and pages are too rarely marked with matters of unperverted intellect, or unsullied morality. Even when the substance is sound, the coloring is too high, or the shape distorted. In some way truth is distorted, the credulous and undiscerning multitude are misled, society is demoralized, and the country suffers. And such will inevitably be the case, until public men shall have been so far improved in their character, as to exercise their higher faculties instead of their lower-their moral and reflecting, in preference to their animal. Nor can any thing but sound and efficient education, commenced in infancy, and continued until manhood, insure the result. Without this, neither the principles and operations of government or the church, nor of both united, can produce the effect. Unless those principles be planted in a mental soil, prepared for their reception, by sound education, they cannot take root, and produce the fruit that the unreflecting expect from them. The truth of this is proved by experience, and amply testified to by the history of our race.

Such are the principles, to which debate in legislative and other deliberative bodies should conform, and to which it must conform, or fall short of the benefits that might otherwise be derived from it. Let us now ascertain, by a brief examination of them, how far this conformity attaches to the productions already referred to. That they are all the offspring of powerful and disciplined minds, it would be superfluous to assert, because it will not be denied. Nor is it either our province or our purpose to endeavor to show, which of them bears the impress of the higher genius. We shall limit our remarks chiefly to their greater or less fitness for the occasion, on which they were delivered, and to the stronger or weaker probability of their promoting the object, for which they were intended. If, in opening his discourse, it be the true policy, and, therefore, the duty of an

orator, to awaken in his audience kind feeling, allay their prejudices, soothe their dislikes, and thus conciliate their favor, the more certainly to pave the way to their final approbation, Mr. M'Duffie was any thing but happy, in his exordium. The very first shaft he discharges, is from the full quiver of his barbed invectives. And it is brought to its mark, with all the force of his vigorous arm.

"The whole public treasure of the United States has been removed from the depository estab lished by law, by an arbitrary and lawless exercise of executive power. I affirm that the act has been done by the President of the United States, not only without legal authority, but, I might almost say, in contempt of the authority of Congress."

"I maintain that the President of the United States is the author of this whole proceeding, and shall proceed to show that, notwithstanding the devices by which this assumption of power is covered over and disguised, he has assumed the responsibility,' or, more properly speaking, usurped the power, of removing the deposites." * * "It has not been long since a king of France lost his crown, and narrowly escaped the loss of his life, for a violation of a charter not more flagrant than this we are considering."

*

This withering strain of accusation and invective the orator follows up, with taunts of sarcastic irony, no less cutting and embittered.

"So, it would seem that the President has exercised this power from the sheer necessity of the case-a case of great public emergency that admitted of no delay, and that he has assumed this high responsibility with the utmost pain and reluctance! To be sure, sir, every body knows that executive power, especially that high order of executive power which rises above the law, is always assumed with great and unfeigned reluctance. It would have been exceedingly painful to Cæsar to have been constrained to assume the kingly office; but Cæsar put by the crown. It was no less painful, as it seems, to Richard the Third, to accept the bloody crown of his murdered relatives, when urged upon him by the clamor of his own partizans, and by his own procurement; but he, like the President, could not resist the call of his countrymen, saying, as Shakspeare has it,

'I am not made of stone,

But penetrable to your kind intreaties,

Albeit against my conscience and my soul.""

The speaker holds on, untiringly, with the same terrible weapons and unsparing blows, with which he commenced the conflict. His cuts, if possible, become deeper and bloodier.

"Sir, it is too apparent to be disguised by these bungling devices, that the President of the United States is the officer, by whose sole and despotic will the treasures have been removed from the Bank of the United States. He alone is the responsible agent in this transaction. It is an utter perversion of language to say that the Secretary of the Treasury has removed the deposites. It is absolutely false; (I speak in a legal sense ;) he had no more agency, moral or legal, than the iron pen, by which the order of removal was written. The Secretary of the Treasury remove the deposites! He refused to remove them! and has paid the penalty of his honest independence, by being discarded from office."

"In what manner, and for what purpose, was the present Secretary of the Treasury brought into office? Sir, he came into office through a breach in the Constitution; and his very appointment was the means of violating the law and the public faith. He was brought into his present station to be the instrument of executive usurpation. And yet, Sir, because his name is attached to the order, we are gravely told that the Secretary of the Treasury removed the deposites. It is an insult to the common sense of the nation to say so."

The orator's invectives against the Secretary of the Treasury are no less bitter, and even more indignant and scornful.

"There could not have been selected a time for performing this act (the removal of the deposites) better calculated to show the President's defiance of the Legislative authority. And yet, Sir, the Secretary of the Treasury comes here with the miserable-I had almost said impudent pretence-that he was constrained to do it by the necessities of the country. Sir, it is not true."

We are far from saying that these charges and denunciations are either unfounded, unmerited, or, in any respect, too deep and dismal for the occasion. We believe the wisest and purest statesmen and patriots of the nation hold them just. We only call in question their expediency, considering that the orator had a mighty object to attain-no less than the preservation of the liberties and Constitution of his country, and of the spirit of freedom throughout the world-and that his success depended on the will of many, who were then opposed to him, and listening to his discourse. We are compelled to believe, (and we derive our evidence from our views of the constitution of man,) that, had policy and prudence been calmly consulted, they would have prescribed to the speaker a different course. They would have directed him to temper the intensity of his southern fire, and either waive his sarcasms, or dilute and moderate their bitterness and causticity. By pursuing such a course, he might have multiplied the advocates of his cause. We are no strangers to the deafness and unbending nature of the spirit of political

party; nor are we settled in our belief, that its ranks could have been broken, or its movements arrested, by the missiles of reason, however abundant or skillfully directed. Its numbers might, however, have been diminished, by the arguments of the speaker, which were sound, and urged with uncommon ability-might, we mean, had they been unaccompanied by any thing exceptionable to the opposite party. But they carried their antidote along with them, in the deep censure with which they were blended.

We intend no unmerited praise, in saying, that but few men of the age could have delivered Mr. M'Duffie's speech; so lofty are its qualities, and so rare the characteristics of genius that mark it. Nor do we mean either disrespect or condemnation, in adding, that the performance was, notwithstanding, much better calculated to produce temporary effect, than lasting benefit; to animate and encourage the speaker's friends, than to conciliate and practically convince and proselyte his adversaries. It is a party production; admirably fitted to cheer to the combat; but not well adapted to insure success. With all its cogency, boldness, and eloquence, (and it is distinguished in each,) we doubt whether it gained to the great cause of right and law, the Constitution, freedom, and our country, a single vote. Perhaps it even left the matter worse than it found it--friends not increased, and opponents irritated, mortified, and more confirmed in their course. We remember not, at present, where to find, in parliamentary debate, denunciations so stern, invective so vehement, or strokes of sarcasm so incurably wounding. Whether search be made in the Philippics of Demosthenes, the Orations of Cicero against Verres and Clodius, Antony and Cataline, or in the speeches of Chatham, Burke, and Sheridan, nothing, we think, can be found to equal it in severity-certainly nothing to surpass it.

On the intellectual character of Mr. Calhoun's speech, it is difficult to bestow extravagant praise. In some respects the address is unrivalled by any contemporary production, on the same subject. In its searching acuteness, its wide philosophical grasp, and close compression of matter, as well as in the strictness and accuracy of its dialectics, it is pre-eminent in the midst of the other great efforts of the occasion. Unencumbered with details, it is a compact incorporation of political principles, selected and brought together with a degree of sagacity, and compounded with a dexterity of statesmanship, that have rarely been equaled. Dwelling briefly on each topic it embraces, yet, with a single touch, illustrating and settling each, it is characterized by the terseness and strength of the writings of Aristotle and Bacon, and, as far as it extends, is one of the soundest epitomes of constitutional philosophy, and political logic, we have ever perused. It is directed chiefly against the reasons rendered by the Secretary of the Treas ury, for the removal of the deposites; and, wherever the champion of the Constitution strikes, he overthrows and shatters, in the very onset, and, scarcely deigning to look on his fallen victim, passes proudly on to another triumph. Throughout the whole conflict, his blows are so irresistible, and his march so haughty and desolating, that we fancy we see the Secretary cowering and writhing beneath him, like the bleeding quarry beneath the falcon. There is reason to imagine, that he exhibited, while delivering his address, more of the Roman Senator, in his air and manner, than we are accustomed to witness, in modern times.

It

The speech, however, has some faults, mingled with its high and numerous excellencies. Its abstractions are too subtle, and its generalizations too deep and comprehensive, for the common mind; and the sternness of its rebukes must have offended, while it mortified. Though it does not inveigh and denounce, in express terms, to the same extent, and with the directness and pungency of the speech of Mr. M'Duffie, it is scarcely less blighting, in its matter and tone. proves, substantially, what the other sometimes but boldly asserts. A single extract from it will confirm our remarks. The extract is long, but cannot be divided without injustice; and it will amply compensate the time spent in its perusal. In the form of an ascending climax of charges, it exposes the successive assumptions or usurpations of the Secretary of the Treasury, arrogant if not insulting toward the legislative and judicial branches of the government, but in truckling obedience to the will of the Executive.

"The Secretary having established, as he supposes, his right to dispose of the deposites, as, in his opinion, the general interest and convenience of the people might require, proceeds to claim and exercise power with a boldness commensurate with the extravagance of the right he has assumed. He commences with a claim to determine, in his official character, that the Bank of the United States is unconstitutional-a monopoly-baneful to the welfare of the community. Having determined this point, he comes to the conclusion that the charter of the Bank ought not to be re