DEATH OF WILLIAM PINKNEY.
He died at Washington during the session of the Congress of which
he was a member, and of the Supreme Court of which he was a
practitioner. He fell like the warrior, in the plenitude of his
strength, and on the field of his fame--under the double labors
of the Supreme Court and of the Senate, and under the immense
concentration of thought which he gave to the preparation of his
speeches. He was considered in his day the first of American
orators, but will hardly keep that place with posterity, because he
spoke more to the hearer than to the reader--to the present than to
the absent--and avoided the careful publication of his own speeches.
He labored them hard, but it was for the effect of their delivery,
and the triumph of present victory. He loved the admiration of the
crowded gallery--the trumpet-tongued fame which went forth from
the forum--the victory which crowned the effort; but avoided the
publication of what was received with so much applause, giving as
a reason that the published speech would not sustain the renown of
the delivered one. His _forte_ as a speaker lay in his judgment,
his logic, his power of argument; but, like many other men of
acknowledged pre-eminence in some great gift of nature, and who are
still ambitious of some inferior gift, he courted his imagination
too much, and laid too much stress upon action and delivery--so
potent upon the small circle of actual hearers, but so lost upon
the national audience which the press now gives to a great speaker.
In other respects Mr. Pinkney was truly a great orator, rich in his
material, strong in his argument--clear, natural and regular in the
exposition of his subject, comprehensive in his views, and chaste
in his diction. His speeches, both senatorial and forensic, were
fully studied and laboriously prepared--all the argumentative parts
carefully digested under appropriate heads, and the showy passages
often fully written out and committed to memory. He would not speak
at all except upon preparation; and at sexagenarian age--that at
which I knew him--was a model of study and of labor to all young
men. His last speech in the Senate was in reply to Mr. Rufus King,
on the Missouri question, and was the master effort of his life.
The subject, the place, the audience, the antagonist, were all such
as to excite him to the utmost exertion. The subject was a national
controversy convulsing the Union and menacing it with dissolution;
the place was the American Senate; the audience was Europe and
America; the antagonist was PRINCEPS SENATUS, illustrious for
thirty years of diplomatic and senatorial service, and for great
dignity of life and character. He had ample time for preparation,
and availed himself of it. Mr. King had spoken the session before,
and published the "Substance" of his speeches (for there were two
of them), after the adjournment of Congress. They were the signal
guns for the Missouri controversy. It was to these published
speeches that Mr. Pinkney replied, and with the interval between
two sessions to prepare. It was a dazzling and overpowering reply,
with the prestige of having the union and the harmony of the States
for its object, and crowded with rich material. The most brilliant
part of it was a highly-wrought and splendid amplification (with
illustrations from Greek and Roman history), of that passage in Mr.
Burke's speech upon "Conciliation with the Colonies," in which,
and in looking to the elements of American resistance to British
power, he looks to the spirit of the slaveholding colonies as a
main ingredient, and attributes to the masters of slaves, who are
not themselves slaves, the highest love of liberty and the most
difficult task of subjection. It was the most gorgeous speech
ever delivered in the Senate, and the most applauded; but it was
only a magnificent exhibition, as Mr. Pinkney knew, and could not
sustain in the reading the plaudits it received in delivery; and
therefore he avoided its publication. He gave but little attention
to the current business of the Senate, only appearing in his place
when the "Salaminian galley was to be launched," or some special
occasion called him--giving his time and labor to the bar, where
his pride and glory was. He had previously served in the House
of Representatives, and his first speech there was attended by
an incident illustrative of Mr. Randolph's talent for delicate
intimation, and his punctilious sense of parliamentary etiquette.
Mr. Pinkney came into the House with a national reputation, in
the fulness of his fame, and exciting a great expectation--which
he was obliged to fulfil. He spoke on the treaty-making power--a
question of diplomatic and constitutional law; and he having been
minister to half the courts of Europe, attorney general of the
United States, and a jurist by profession, could only speak upon it
in one way--as a great master of the subject; and, consequently,
appeared as if instructing the House. Mr. Randolph--a veteran of
twenty years' parliamentary service--thought a new member should
serve a little apprenticeship before he became an instructor, and
wished to signify that to Mr. Pinkney. He had a gift, such as man
never had, at a delicate intimation where he desired to give a hint,
without offence; and he displayed it on this occasion. He replied
to Mr. Pinkney, referring to him by the parliamentary designation
of "the member from Maryland;" and then pausing, as if not certain,
added, "I believe he is from Maryland." This implied doubt as to
where he came from, and consequently as to who he was, amused Mr.
Pinkney, who understood it perfectly, and taking it right, went over
to Mr. Randolph's seat, introduced himself, and assured him that
he was "from Maryland." They became close friends for ever after;
and it was Mr. Randolph who first made known his death in the House
of Representatives, interrupting for that purpose an angry debate,
then raging, with a beautiful and apt quotation from the quarrel of
Adam and Eve at their expulsion from paradise. The published debates
give this account of it: "Mr. Randolph rose to announce to the House
an event which he hoped would put an end, at least for this day, to
all further jar or collision, here or elsewhere, among the members
of this body. Yes, for this one day, at least, let us say, as our
first mother said to our first father--
'While yet we live, scarce one short hour perhaps,
Between us two let there be peace.'
"I rise to announce to the House the not unlooked for death of a man
who filled the first place in the public estimation, in the first
profession in that estimation, in this or in any other country. We
have been talking of General Jackson, and a greater than him is, not
here, but gone for ever. I allude, sir, to the boast of Maryland,
and the pride of the United States--the pride of all of us, but more
particularly the pride and ornament of the profession of which you,
Mr. Speaker (Mr. Philip P. Barbour), are a member, and an eminent
one."
Mr. Pinkney was kind and affable in his temper, free from every
taint of envy or jealousy, conscious of his powers, and relying upon
them alone for success. He was a model, as I have already said, and
it will bear repetition, to all young men in his habits of study and
application, and at more than sixty years of age was still a severe
student. In politics he classed democratically, and was one of the
few of our eminent public men who never seemed to think of the
presidency. Oratory was his glory, the law his profession, the bar
his theatre; and his service in Congress was only a brief episode,
dazzling each House, for he was a momentary member of each, with a
single and splendid speech.