as Webster — Senator Daniel Webster, who served Massachusetts in the
United States Senate from 1827-1841. Ludlow was a member of Union College’s
debate club, but had an interest in oratory that went back even as far as
grade school. He later recalled his play-time abolitionist speeches:
Among the large crowd of young Southerners sent to [my] school, I began
preaching emancipation in my pinafore. Mounted upon a window-seat in an
alcove of the great play-hall, I passed recess after recess in haranguing a
multitude upon the subject of Freedom, with as little success as most
apostles, and with only less than their crowd of martyrdom, because, though
small boys are more malicious than men, they cannot hit so hard.
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