Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 9.djvu/369

 Slavery Question in Oregon. 341 of its effect upon the audience who heard it delivered. That grreatest of English orators, Charles James Fox, said that a great speech did not read well. There is much in a great presence, even in repose, and an English statesman said that Daniel Webster was a walking false pretense, for no man could be as great as Webster looked. Emerson (I think it was) describing the scene at the dedication of the Bunker Hill monument, said that there were two things which did not disappoint the eye, Webster and the monument. Senator Lodge, in his biography of Webster, says: "no one ever came into the world so physically equipped for speech." And McCall in his Centennial oration in 1901, said '"He possessed as noble a voice as ever broke upon the human ear." He was barely six feet high, but looked taller, and his presence was so imposing that McCall said : ' ' This enormous personality was not sluggish, but in time of excitement it was full of animation and dramatic fire." He was generally in a state of repose, and Sydney Smith compared him to an anthracite furnace that only needed blowing. He was seldom full}^ aroused and was at his best only on great occasions. At the time of the Bunker Hill oration before alluded to, the crowed was so great and pressing to get nearer the speakers' stand that those in front, in danger of being crushed, called to Mr. Webster to have the people stand back. Webster, who had not begun his oration, came to the front of the platform and called out, ' ' Fellow citizens, those in front are being borne down and you must fall back and give them room." Those near the middle cried out, "We cannot stand back; it is impossible." Webster stretched out his arm and in a voice that reached to the furthest limits of that vast multitude, exclaimed, "Stand back, stand back, fellow citizens, nothing is impos- sible on Bunker Hill." That command, so uttered by the God-like Daniel, would have moved a mountain, and the dense pack of humanity, swayed as by a single impulse, gave room.