ty-nine fathers who
framed the original Constitution, twenty-one--a clear
majority of the whole--certainly understood that no proper
division of local from Federal authority, nor any part of the
Constitution, forbade the Federal Government to control
slavery in the Federal Territories."

ABRAHAM LINCOLN: _Cooper Union Speech_, 1860

5. Is the following well phrased? What makes it so? Is any expression
too strong? Do you object to any? How many of the words would you be
likely not to use?

"It is but too true that there are many whose whole scheme of
freedom is made up of pride, perverseness, and insolence.
They feel themselves in a state of thraldom; they imagine
that their souls are cooped and cabined in, unless they have
some man, or some body of men, dependent on their mercy. The
desire of having some one below them descends to those who
are the very lowest of all; and a Protestant cobbler, debased
by his poverty, but exalted by his share of the ruling
church, feels a pride in knowing it is by his generosity
alone that the peer, whose footman's instep he measures, is
able to keep his chaplain from a gaol. This disposition is
the true source of the passion which many men, in very humble
life, have taken to the American war. Our subjects in
America; our colonies; our dependents. This lust of party
power is the liberty they hunger and thirst for; and this
Siren song of ambition has charmed ears that we would have
thought were never organized to that sort of music."

EDMUND BURKE: _Speech at Bristol_, 1780

6. Describe the effects of the questions in the next. How is sentence
variety secured? What effects have the simple, declarative sentences?

"And from what have these consequences sprung? We have been
involved in no war. We have been at peace with all the world.
We have been visited with no national calamity. Our people
have been advancing in general intelligence, and, I will add,
as great and alarming as has been the advance of political
corruption among the mercenary corps who look to government
for support, the morals and virtue of the community at large
have been advancing in improvement. What, I again repeat, is
the cause?"

JOHN C. CALHOUN: _Speech on the Force Bill_, 1833

7. What quality predominates in the following? Does it lower the tone
of the passage too much?