A Great American Orator: How 19th-Century Senator Daniel Webster Developed His Unique Gifts

A Great American Orator: How 19th-Century Senator Daniel Webster Developed His Unique Gifts
“Godlike Daniel” adresses a crowd in front of the Revere House at Bowdoin Square in Boston, circa 1851. Public Domain
Jeff Minick
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A contemporary, journalist Oliver Dyer, described Daniel Webster this way: “The head, the face, the whole presence of Webster, was kingly, majestic, god-like.”

That third description stuck. Others began referencing the senator and orator from New Hampshire as “Godlike Daniel.” His words could move the hearts of his listeners, and his vibrant voice often brought many in his audience to rhapsody and sometimes tears, but it was his appearance—his dark complexion, his luxuriant, wild hair, his eyes “like glowing coals”—that earned him his nickname.

Jeff Minick
Jeff Minick
Author
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust on Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning as I Go” and “Movies Make the Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
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