Daniel IV.
Voorhees as Lawyer and Orator.
rest." Or, "The surrender at Appomatox illuminated th** Republic from ocean to ocean; Lincoln died in the light of a na tional jubilee, himself the chief instrumen tality of what had been done." Or, " We hear the siren voice of the moment, but fail to catch the loftier harmony of the eternal spheres." Speaking of the return of the Southern States : " Those wandering stars from the azure field of the flag, those dis contented Pleiades that shot madly from their spheres, have one by one re-illumined their rays at the great central light and glory." Or, " The tree shall be known by its fruits; the thorn and the thistle do not bear delicious figs, and a life of innocence and peace does not bloom and ripen of a sudden into a harvest of atrocious crime." But for smoothness, for diction, and for picturesqueness few in our language excel him. His periods have the easy flow of Gray's " Elegy," or of Longfellow's writings, rather than the fire of Byron, or the majesty of Pitt or Webster. His favorite book was the Bible, which he read almost daily, and from which he not only drew many illustra tions, but frequently quoted at length. Voor hees was a man of striking appearance, of a florid complexion, and slightly over six feet in height. He had a magnetic presence, to an unusual degree; and his movements in speaking to an audience or jury were a pleasure to behold. His voice left nothing to be desired in an orator. One of his law yer friends has said that a stranger, standing within the sound of his voice, but too far away to distinguish his words, could not help being charmed with it, and with the grace of his gestures and demeanor. He possessed a clear and penetrating insight into human nature, which served him well, not only in addressing popular audiences, but in arguing a case b'efore a jury. His
363
power over juries was so great, and his tri umph for the defense so frequent in criminal cases, that it became almost a proverb in Indiana, " Where Voorhees speaks there will be a verdict for the defense." Previous to 1873 the defendant in criminal cases in In diana had the closing argument, but in that year the law was so changed that the prose cution had the first and last addresses to the jury; and this was brought about almost wholly because of the many triumphs of Voorhees. No one who had a just regard for the truth and his word, and who knew what he was saying, ever claimed that Senator Voor hees had ever a broad or a deep knowledge of the law, or, in fact, an accurate knowledge of it. Perhaps, in the last years of his life he never seriously looked into a law book. Others gathered the evidence and planned the fight; he made the speech. He was not a close student of the law, perhaps, even in his early career as a lawyer. Few lawyers of his cast of mind and command of language ever are. The claim has been made by some of his friends that he possessed great learning; but such expressions must be regarded as emanating from the exuber ance of admiration rather than from the strict lines of truth. That he possessed a fund of information far in excess of the or dinary individual, is not to be doubted; but to say that is very far from saying he pos sessed great learning. He was generous far beyond his means. The poor over-excited his sympathies; and his friendships never ceased to draw dollars from his pockets to spend in the entertain ment of his friends. His heart was large, indeed, very large; his designs impelled by good intentions. His fees were often very great, and his income from his practice at times was quite large in amount; but he died a poor man, leaving to his family only
