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She knew the turn of her cousin's mind, his education as a man of the people, his position as a man of property, his earnest desire to do right, his patient habits of business, and his thorough method of research and inquiry, were all certain guarantees that he could not fail; and she had the belief that his abilities, and readiness, and confidence would make him an eloquent and skilful debater.
"He has wit, facts, dates," said Douglas, in extenuation of his own disinclination to enter upon the famous joint debates, and, when Douglas returned to Washington after the debates were over, he confessed to the young Henry Watterson that "he is the greatest debater I have ever met, either here or anywhere else."
Cunningham was the most powerful debater on the slavery side of the question; Mr. Thompson was the ablest on the anti-slavery side. A scene occurred between these two men, a parallel to which I think I never witnessed before, and I know I never have since. The scene was caused by a single exclamation on the part of Mr. Thompson.
I cannot dwell on those protracted debates, which lasted four months, or on the minor questions which demanded attention, all centering in the great question whether the government should be federative or national. But the ablest debater of the convention was Hamilton, and his speeches were impressive and convincing.
It is said that Charles James Fox, the most resourceful debater the British Parliament has ever seen, was so fond of his home and his wife that he would actually absent himself from Parliament for the sheer pleasure of her presence and conversation.
I feel that much practice will be necessary to make me a good debater on points of detail; but my friends tell me that I have raised my reputation by showing that I was quite equal to the work of extemporaneous reply. My manner, they say, is cold and wants care. I feel this myself.
"Then it is God who put it into them, since it is God who made them." "Ah, you are a debater! Well, if it gives you pleasure, I will answer you. Man has both the spirit of good and the spirit of evil in him, that is to say, the possibility of doing the one or the other. If he succumbs to evil, he is damned. If he triumphs over it, he is rewarded.
When you look at him, you are not surprised to learn that he is not a florid orator nor a smart debater, he is a, "weighty speaker." He is fairly read, but without any great range either of ornamental scholarship or constitutional lore. He has not much humour; but he has that kind of wit which is essential to grave and serious irony.
He was a conservative of the truest and best kind, but in his later years went too far in supporting existing institutions merely because they existed. Lacking practical accommodation to circumstances, he would probably not have been a great minister; neither was he a consummate parliamentary tactician and debater, nevertheless he stands in the first ranks of statesmen and orators.
Douglas, who had opposed these extravagant appropriations, having distinguished himself as a debater, an organizer and a leader, was, a few days after the adjournment, appointed Register of the United States Land Office at Springfield, to which place he at once removed. In the following November he was nominated for Congress.
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