NEITHER ORATOR NOR GOOD TALKER
Jefferson was neither an orator nor
a good talker. He could not make a speech.
His voice would sink downwards instead of rising upwards
out of his throat.
But as regards legal learning he was
in the front rank. No one was more ready than
he in ably written opinions and defenses.
It was in what John Adams termed “the
divine science of politics” that Jefferson won
his immortal and resplendent fame.