Carson's speech at Craigavon crystallised them into practical politics.
Sir Edward Carson's public speaking has always been entirely free from rhetorical artifice.

He seldom made use of metaphor or imagery, or elaborate periods, or variety of gesture.

His language was extremely simple and straightforward; but his mobile expression--so variable that his enemies saw in it a suggestion of Mephistopheles, and his friends a resemblance to Dante--his measured diction, and his skilful use of a deep-toned voice, gave a remarkable impressiveness to all he said--even, indeed, to utterances which, if spoken by another, would sometimes have sounded commonplace or obvious.

Sarcasm he could use with effect, and a telling point was often made by an epigrammatic phrase which delighted his hearers.

And, more than all else, his meaning was never in doubt.