Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 04.pdf/22

 Caleb Cushing. in his able address before the Essex Bar, has given an instance where some one in the Massachusetts Legislature had quoted from an old speech to show his inconsistency. "Cushing was uneasy under the attack, and the moment it was finished he sprang to the floor, and defended himself with great spirit in a speech of about fifteen min utes, which for rapid, overwhelming, and powerful declamation was never surpassed in that hall. The effect was electrical. The House and gallery broke out in the most tumultuous applause, which the Speaker tried in vain to suppress; and the member from Monson, instead of scoring a point against Cushing, suddenly found himself on the de fensive, and was glad to beat a hasty retreat and withdrew from the field." When able, however, he prepared his speeches with .care. As a speaker Cushing ranked high. He was choice in use of language, seeking from the copious vocabulary at his command the best word to convey his meaning, sometimes an unusual one. He had a power of clear statement, so effective in an orator, and so marked a trait in Daniel Webster. His sen tences were well constructed and vigorous, — with his mind they could not have been otherwise. He had a good voice, a distinct enunciation, spoke slowly unless excited, and with much emphasis, and held the atten tion of his hearers. He was logical, appeal ing more to reason than to passion. He was persistent to the end in whatever he engaged. Mr. Cushing was a brave man, and never feared an antagonist. Shortly after he en tered Congress, an old member from a State where the Code was recognized as the true way to settle difficulties, and who had made himself feared, attempted to browbeat the new young member; but Cushing replied in a way that called out the applause of the House and galleries, and ended by declaring himself responsible for his words, there or elsewhere. Mr. Cushing was called a cold man. He

7

was not demonstrative, and certainly had but little of that " magnetism " said to be a trait of some public men. He was naturally re tiring, and not generally social, because not caring for the conversation of most social gatherings. He had but little of what is called " small talk." A gentleman at whose fireside he often sat said he would re main silent, absorbed in his thoughts, till some topic was started requiring informa tion, or leading to discussion, when his in terest would be aroused, and he would talk for hours. He was accessible, kind, freely giving advice to his friends and neighbors in their troubles; and when he joined, as he often did, in their fishing excursions, he was one of the most agreeable of companions, and laughed and joked with the merriest. A lady said to me that the only time she ever called at his home he took her over his house, and in one room he had preserved every little thing that had been his mother's, — surely not an evidence of a cold heart. In his habits he was simple, abstemious, indifferent to food, dress, and outward display. Mr. Cushing was reproached as not enough in sympathy with the great reforms of the day, especially with the Anti-slavery sentiment. In 1836 Henry A. Wise threatened in Con gress to plant slavery in the North, and in an indignant speech Mr. Cushing replied : "You may raze to the earth the thronged cities, the industrious villages, the peaceful hamlets of the North; you may plant its soil with salt, and consign it to everlasting desolation; you may transform its beauti ful fields into a desert as bare as Sahara. . . . But I assure every gentleman within the sound of my voice, you shall not intro duce slavery into the North." He was a law yer, however, and had been a judge, and from his whole training had been accustomed to look at the legal aspects of every question; and for that reason he, Daniel Webster, and other statesmen of that period opposed the abolition agitation as against the Constitution which they had sworn to obey. They took