William M. Evarts

"In none of his ways has he the magnetism of a great speaker. He has a clear, sharp, ringing voice, though it is not powerful or musical. His action is sparing, but effective. In making his points he is lucid, precise and cogent, seldom rhetorical or ornamental. He has an easy colloquial way; he is never in haste and never hesitates. His style is classic in its correctness. His sentences are long and faultless, and freighted with words which show that profound thought is selecting felicitous vocabulary as it goes along. He has a fine humor, but it is the humor of cultivation, not the coarse fun of the vulgar. His appeal to the intelligence of juries are the highest in their tone, the broadest in their scope and the deepest in their power of any in modern times."