It has the elasticity and vigor of great strength, and glows with eloquence in some passages.

Here, too, we see for the first time that power of deliberate and measured sarcasm which was destined to become in his hands such a formidable weapon.

The florid rhetoric of the early days is utterly gone, and the thought comes to us in those short and pregnant sentences and in the choice and effective words which were afterwards so typical of the speaker.

The speech itself was a party speech and a presentation of party arguments.

It offered nothing new, but the familiar principles had hardly ever been stated in such a striking and impressive fashion.