'
'You do not speak,' answered Sumner, 'to the Senators. You do not think
of them. You know that their minds are made up. Except as to mere
executive questions, such as the approval of a public functionary, or the
acceptance or modification of a treaty, every senator comes in pledged to
a given, or to an assumed, set of opinions and measures. You speak to the
public. You speak in order that 500,000 copies of what you say, as was
the case with my last speech, may be scattered over the whole Union.'
'That,' I said, 'must much affect the character of your oratory. A speech
meant to be read must be a different thing from one meant to be heard.
Your speeches must in fact be pamphlets, and that I suppose accounts for
their length.'
'That is true,' replied Sumner. 'But when you hear that we speak for a
day, or for two days, or, as I have sometimes done, for three days, you
must remember that our days are days of only three hours each.'
'How long,' I asked, 'was your last speech?'
'About five hours,' he answered. 'Three hours the first day and two hours
the second.'
'That,' I said, 'is not beyond our remotest limit. Brougham indeed, on
the amendment of the law, spoke for six hours, during the greater part of
the time to an audience of three.
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