text:  What must be the condition of a minister rising before such an audience to pronounce the grave doctrines of public prudence; to oppose argument to brilliant declamation; to proclaim regulated obedience in the midst of spirits fantastic as the winds; and to lay restraints essential to the public peace on a population proud of their past defiances and ready to welcome even civil war? I was not conscious of any natural timidity; nor have I ever found occasion to distrust my nerve on any great demand; but I must acknowledge that when in some of the leading debates of that most absorbing and most perilous period I rose to take the initiative the sight of the vast audience to whom I raised my eyes was one of the severest trials of my philosophy