Answer:
Appearance
Mr. Lincoln's person was ungainly. He was six feet four inches in height; a little stooped in the shoulders; his legs and arms were long; his feet and hands large; his forehead was high. His head was over the average size. His eyes were gray. His face and forehead were wrinkled even in his youth. They deepened with age, 'as streams their channels deeper wear.' Generally he was a very sad man, and his countenance indicated it. But when he warmed up all sadness vanished, his face was radiant and glowing, and almost gave expression to his thoughts before his tongue would utter them.
Logic
The address was one of the clearest, most logical, argumentative and convincing discourses on the Nebraska question to which we have listened.
Mannerisms
About the year 1832 or 1833 Mr. Lincoln made his first effort at public speaking. A debating club of which James Rutledge was President was organized and held regular meetings -- as he arose to speak his tall form towered above the little assembly. Both hands were thrust down deep in the pockets of his pantaloons. A perceptible smile at once lit up the faces of the audience for all anticipated the relation of some humorous story. But he opened up the discussion in splendid style to the infinite astonishment of his friends. As he warmed with his subject his hands would forsake his pockets and would enforce his ideas by awkward gestures; but would very soon seek their easy resting place.
Persuasion
It would be doing injustice to his speech to endeavor to give a sketch of it. It was replete with good sense, sound reasoning, and irresistible argument, and spoken with that perfect command of manner and matter which so eminently distinguishes the Western orators.
Power
I have heard or read all Mr. Lincoln's great speeches and I give it as my opinion on my best judgment that the Bloomington speech was the grand effort of his life. Heretofore and up to this moment he had simply argued the slavery question on grounds of policy -- on the grounds of what is called the statesman's grounds, never reaching the question of the radical and eternal right. Now he was newly baptized and freshly born: he had the fervor of a new convert: the smothered flame broke out: enthusiasm unusual to him blazed up: his eyes were aglow with an inspiration: he felt Justice: his heart was alive to the right: his sympathies -- unusually deep to him -- burst forth, and he stood before the throne of the eternal right in presence of his God & then and there unburthened his penitential, and fired soul. This speech was fresh -- new -- genuine -- odd -- original -- filled with fervor -- not unmixed with a divine enthusiasm, his head breathing out through his tender heart its Truths -- its sense of Right and its feeling of the good and for the good. This speech was full of fire & energy & force. It was logic -- it was pathos -- it was enthusiasm. It was Justice -- Equity -- Truth -- Right & the Good set ablaze by the divine fires of a soul maddened by the wrong. It was hard -- heavy -- knotty -- gnarly -- edged and heated.
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Explanation:
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