His stroke
was an Abdiel stroke,
This greeting on thy impious crest receive.
His eloquence was simple, rugged, direct, strong. He had
but a scanty vocabulary. It contained no word for treason
but "treason." He described a lie by a word of three letters.
The character of his speech was that which Plutarch ascribes
to Demosthenes. He was strongly stirred by simple and great
emotions--love of country, love of freedom, love of justice,
love of honesty. He hated cant and affectation.
I believe he was fond of some good literature, but he was
very impatient of Mr. Sumner's load of ornament and quotation.
He had little respect for fine phrases or for fine sentiment
or the delicacies of a refined literature. He was rough and
plain-spoken. I do not think he would ever have learned to
care much for Tennyson or Browning. But the Psalms of David
would have moved him.
I suppose he was not much of a civil service reformer. He
expected to rule Michigan, and while he would have never bought
or bribed an antagonist by giving him an office, he would
have expected to fill the public offices, so far as he had
his way, by men who were of his way of thinking.
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