argument seemed to satisfy Giles unless it carried an implication of criminality against his opponents.
Giles's speech was such as an orator would select to answer, and James Asheton Bayard could fairly claim the right to call himself an orator. Born in Philadelphia, in 1767, Bayard was five years younger than Giles, and had followed the opposite path in politics. Without being an extreme Federalist, he had been since 1796 a distinguished member of the Federalist party in Congress, and had greatly contributed to moderate the extravagances of his friends. In the style of personality which Giles affected, Bayard was easily a master. Virulence against virulence, aristocracy had always the advantage over democracy; for the aristocratic orator united distinct styles of acrimony, and the style of social superiority was the most galling. Giles affected democratic humility to the last, and partly for that reason never became a master even of invective; while John Randolph, finding the attitude of a democrat unsuited for his rhetoric, abandoned it, and seemed to lose his mental balance in the intoxication of his recovered social superiority. Giles's charges, by an opposite illusion, seemed to crawl; his contempt resembled fear; his democratic virtues crouched before the aristocratic insolence they reproved. Bayard appeared to carry with him the sympathy of all that was noble in human character when, taking the floor as Giles sat down, he turned on the Virginian with a dignity of retort which, whatever might be its value as argument,
