Silent Men | AdventAI

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Mar 28, 1878

Silent Men.

Washington never made a speech. In the zenith of his fame he once attempted it, failed, and gave it up confused and abashed. In framing the constitution of the United States, the labor was almost wholly performed in a committee of the whole, of which George Washington was the chairman, but he made only two speeches during the convention, which was of a very few words each. The convention, however, acknowledged the master spirit, and historians affirm that, had it not been for his personal popularity, and the thirty words of his first speech, pronouncing it the best that could be united upon, the constitution would have been rejected by the people. Thomas Jefferson never made a speech. He couldn't do it. Napoleon, whose executive ability is almost without a parallel, said his greatest trouble was in finding men of deeds rather than of words.—Sel.