passion
and ambition were natively stronger in the countenance than reason,
conscience, and general sympathy,--an observation best felt to be true
when the face was compared in imagination with the faces of some of the
world's chief benefactors; but culture, native urbanity, and a powerful
reflective tendency had evidently so wrought, that, though conscience
might be imperilled frequently by great adroitness in the casuistry of
self-excuse, justice could not be consciously opposed for any length of
time without powerful silent reaction. The quantity of being, however,
though superior, was not of so high a measure as the quality, and the
principal deficiencies, though perhaps almost the sole ones, were
plainly moral. In his presence, no man could deny to him something of
that dignity, of a kind superior to that of intellect and will, which
must be possessed by every leader as a basis of confidence. But mournful
severe truth would testify that there was yet, at times, palpably
something of the treacherous serpent in the eye, and it could not
readily be told where it would strike.

In reply to a reference to a somewhat celebrated speech by Senator
Benjamin of Louisiana, which we had heard the day previous, he said that
we might consider it, as a whole, a very fair statement both of the
arguments and the purposes of the South. Perhaps a speech of more
horrible doctrine, upheld by equal argumentative and rhetorical power,
has never been heard in the American Senate. In reply, also, to the one
central question concerning the chief grievance of the South, he gave in
substance the same answer, uttered perhaps with more logical calmness,
that had been given by Mr. Hunter and Mr. Toombs, that it was
substantially covered by Mr. Calhoun's old complaint, the
non-recognition of slave-property under the Federal Constitution. Of
course we were as yet too well established in the belief that slavery in
the United States is upheld by the Constitution only very remotely and
indirectly, under local or municipal law, to desire, even by questions,
to draw on any debate.

In reply to a question by the gentleman from Harvard, he spoke of a
Central Confederacy as altogether improbable, and thought, if Georgia
seceded, as the telegrams for the last fortnight had indicated she
would, Maryland would be sure to go. "I think the commercial and
political interests of Maryland," he remarked, in his calm and simple,
but distinct and watchful manner,