He exerted unusual influence over the opinions of great masses of men.  He had remarkable power of analysis and logical skill.  Originality, self-reliance, impatience, aggressiveness, persistence, sincerity, honesty, ardor,—­these were some of the personal qualities which gave him dominating influence over his generation.

Daniel Webster

Daniel Webster was a massive orator.  He combined logical and argumentative skill with a personality of extraordinary power and attractiveness.  He had a supreme scorn for tricks of oratory, and a horror of epithets and personalities.  His best known speeches are those delivered on the anniversary at Plymouth, the laying of the corner-stone of Bunker Hill monument, and the deaths of Jefferson and Adams.

Edward Everett

Edward Everett was a man of scholastic tastes and habits.  His speaking style was remarkable for its literary finish and polished precision.  His sense of fitness saved him from serious faults of speech or manner.  He blended many graces in one, and his speeches are worthy of study as models of oratorical style.

Rufus Choate

Rufus Choate was a brilliant and persuasive extempore speaker.  He possest in high degree faculties essential to great oratory—­a capacious mind, retentive memory, logical acumen, vivid imagination, deep concentration, and wealth of language.  He had an extraordinary personal fascination, largely due to his broad sympathy and geniality.

Charles Sumner

Charles Sumner was a gifted orator.  His delivery was highly impressive, due fundamentally to his innate integrity and elevated personal character.  He was a wide reader and profound student.  His style was energetic, logical, and versatile.  His intense patriotism and argumentative power, won large favor with his hearers.

William E. Channing

William Ellery Channing was a preacher of unusual eloquence and intellectual power.  He was small in stature, but of surpassing grace.  His voice was soft and musical, and wonderfully responsive to every change of emotion that arose in his mind.  His eloquence was not forceful nor forensic, but gentle and persuasive.

His monument bears this high tribute:  “In memory of William Ellery Channing, honored throughout Christendom for his eloquence and courage in maintaining and advancing the great cause of truth, religion, and human freedom.”

Wendell Phillips

Wendell Phillips was one of the most graceful and polished orators.  To his conversational style he added an exceptional vocabulary, a clear and flexible voice, and a most fascinating personality.

He produced his greatest effects by the simplest means.  He combined humor, pathos, sarcasm and invective with rare skill, yet his style was so simple that a child could have understood him.

George William Curtis

George William Curtis has been described in his private capacity as natural, gentle, manly, refined, simple, and unpretending.  He was the last of the great school of Everett, Sumner, and Phillips.