Not positively, but I have often thought they were a bad influence on me. 
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- Edit 1Before modification by Joel at 31/08/2012 10:58:59 PM
The founding of America is simply my favorite time in history. I'm simply in awe of the men like Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, James Madison, and, heck, even Thomas Paine. Their personal writings are mesmerizing. Nobody writes like that anymore. You could quote just about anything they wrote and apply it to an arguement about politics and blow people away. Their intellect is unmatched nowadays, sadly. Seriously, is there anybody out there right now writing such deep, meaningful things about life and liberty?
These people wrote a document that founded a country and is still, after 200+ years, almost unassailable. How incredibly amazing is that? And also sad, that we haven't managed to improve upon the foundation that was established so many years ago. This country is simply not what it was or how it was suppose to be. Still, for all the cracks in that foundation, it's still something special.
How I wish there was a founding father-type person running for election. What a world that would be.
People writing like that today would find their Wall of Text met by a Wall of TL;DR. Any sentence with more than two clauses is simply too complex for Short Attention Span Theater, as is any document with more than two paragraphs.
While I think you have part of a good point, the intimation and my mental picture totally cracked me up.
Tolkien probably played a role also, but brevity was seldom the hallmark of writing during and after the Enlightenment. There is such a thing as going too far, many matters are so trivial they do not require comprehensively covering every contingency and even where neither is true bad writing of any length remains bad writing. However, while I claim no more than superficial success, yes, I do try to emulate the same approach as they did.