Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History Read online

  For this reason, the parents of those who are now gone, whoever of them may be attending here, I do not bewail—I shall rather comfort…. I know it in truth a difficult task to fix comfort in those breasts which will have frequent remembrances, in seeing the happiness of others, of what they once themselves enjoyed. And sorrow flows not from the absence of those good things we have never yet experienced but from the loss of those to which we have been accustomed…. But you, whose age is already far advanced, compute the greater share of happiness your longer time hath afforded for so much gain, persuaded in yourselves the remainder will be but short, and enlighten that space by the glory gained by these. It is greatness of soul alone that never grows old, nor is it wealth that delights in the latter stage of life, as some give out, so much as honor.

  To you, the sons and brothers of the deceased, whatever number of you are here, a field of hardy contention is opened. For him who no longer is, everyone is ready to commend, so that to whatever height you push your deserts, you will scarce ever be thought to equal, but to be somewhat inferior to these. Envy will exert itself against a competitor while life remains; but when death stops the competition, affection will applaud without restraint.

  If after this it be expected from me to say anything to you who are now reduced to a state of widowhood, about female virtue, I shall express it all in one short admonition: it is your greatest glory not to be deficient in the virtue peculiar to your sex, and to give men as little handle as possible to talk of your behavior, whether well or ill.

  I have now discharged the province allotted me by the laws, and said what I thought most pertinent to this assembly. Our departed friends have by facts been already honored. Their children from this day till they arrive at manhood shall be educated at the public expense of the state which hath appointed so beneficial a meed for these and all future relics of the public contests. For wherever the greatest rewards are proposed for virtue, there the best of patriots are ever to be found. Now let everyone respectively indulge in becoming grief for his departed friends, and then retire.

  Roman Empress Theodora Refuses to Flee

  “The royal purple is the noblest shroud.”

  Byzantine or Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian, on January 18 of the year 532, was certain he was about to be overthrown by rebel leader Hypatius and killed. A fast galley waited at the palace’s private harbor to take him and Empress Theodora to safety in Thrace. His timorous advisers persuaded him that the rebellion could not be stopped and that the way out for the imperial couple was flight. As the panicky leader made for the door, the indomitable empress rose from her throne and delivered a brief speech that kept her husband from taking flight and led to the slaughter of the rebels.

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  MY LORDS, THE present occasion is too serious to allow me to follow the convention that a woman should not speak in a man’s council. Those whose interests are threatened by extreme danger should think only of the wisest course of action, not of conventions.

  In my opinion, flight is not the right course, even if it should bring us to safety. It is impossible for a person, having been born into this world, not to die; but for one who has reigned it is intolerable to be a fugitive. May I never be deprived of this purple robe, and may I never see the day when those who meet me do not call me empress.

  If you wish to save yourself, my lord, there is no difficulty. We are rich; over there is the sea, and yonder are the ships. Yet reflect for a moment whether, when you have once escaped to a place of security, you would not gladly exchange such safety for death. As for me, I agree with the adage that the royal purple is the noblest shroud.

  Founding Father Gouverneur Morris Defines National Greatness

  “It is in the national spirit… I anticipate the day when to command respect in the remotest regions it will be sufficient to say, ‘I am an American.’”

  Gouverneur (that was his first name; he was a New York congressman, never a governor) Morris was among the most conservative of the nation’s founders, at first opposing separation from England. Once the Revolution was under way, however, he responded to Lord North’s appeal for reconciliation by making independence a prerequisite for peace. This strong stand, along with his advocacy of religious tolerance and the abolition of slavery, cost Morris political support in New York; rejected by the voters, he moved to Pennsylvania and aligned himself with financier Robert Morris (no kin) and a group of men around George Washington who later became Federalists—supporters, with Alexander Hamilton, of a central bank and strong central government, opposed by the Jeffersonians. He is the father of dollars and cents: his ideas on decimal coinage became the basis of U.S. currency.

  Although the proceedings were secret, what we know of the Constitutional Convention of 1787 suggests that Gouverneur Morris had more to say than anybody else, speaking against slavery and for life tenure for the president. Chosen to be a member of the committee on style and management, he was primarily responsible for the literary form of the U.S. Constitution. However, “We, the people” was not his philosophy; his antidemocratic mind-set troubled the French radicals when he represented America in Paris, and they asked for his recall. By 1800, when he made this speech about greatness in a nation, he was serving in the U.S. Senate, a stanch Federalist standing against the incoming tide of Jeffersonian democracy.

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  HAD IT BEEN permitted to consult my wishes on this day, I should have selected a theme more suited to my talents or rather have shrouded their weakness in the veil of silence. For I feel but too well that in venturing to discuss the subject of national greatness I must fall short of the ideas in your minds and disappoint your expectations. Instead of irradiating with the light of genius, I must take the more humble course of investigation and begin by inquiring what is national greatness.

  Does it consist in numbers, wealth, or extent of territory? Certainly not. Swollen with the pride inspired by such circumstances, the Persians addressed their master as the Great King, but Darius felt in repeated discomfiture the superiority of a great nation led by Alexander. We see in our day a prince who may boast that the sun never sets on his domain, yet his authority superseded in his ports and insulted in his capital, it would seem as if his territory were extended around the globe only to display before all the world his ignominious condition. Such is the state of that proud monarchy which once menaced the liberties of Europe. But who trembles now at the name of Spain? There is none so abject. Nay, should there exist a government in which fear is the incurable disease, no paroxysm would be excited by the menace of Spain. To the wise a word is sufficient, and therefore it will be needless before this audience to prove that a nation small like Greece may rise to the heights of national greatness while littleness shall mark every public act of a numerous people. And equally needless must it be to express what you cannot but feel: that in proportion to the high esteem, respect, and admiration with which we view the splendor of Greece in the day of her glory is our profound contempt for those who presiding over a powerful people shall tamely submit to the multiplied repetition of indignities from all who through interest or for sport may plunder and insult them. These are feelings so natural that to disguise them would be vain, to suppress them impossible. I could indeed, were I to indulge a licentious imagination, suppose a number of men who without national spirit or sentiment shall presume to call themselves a nation—I can suppose a herd of piddling huckstering individuals base and insensible….

  Let us pause. Perhaps there never was a society of men so completely void of virtue. But between them and the brave band at Thermopylae gradations are infinite.

  Perhaps it may be asked if genius and excellence in the arts constitute national greatness. To this question the answer must be given with caution and not without some modification. The ages of Pericles, of Augustus, and of Louis XIV were indeed ages of splendor. They were unquestionably the evidence, but I must venture to believe they were the result, not the cause of national greatness. A nation truly grea
t cannot but excel in arts as well as in arms. And as a great mind stamps with its own impression the most common arts, so national greatness will show itself alike in the councils of policy, in the works of genius, in monuments of magnificence and deeds of glory. All these are the fruits, but they are not the tree.

  Here I anticipate the general and the generous question: Does it not consist in liberty? That liberty is a kind and fostering nurse of greatness will be cheerfully and cordially admitted, but as we have seen national greatness where there was no freedom, so we have seen free nations where baseness rather than greatness constituted the national character. The intrepidity of the Swiss troops is generally known and acknowledged. In a contest for freedom with the duke of Burgundy the nation was great and covered itself with glory, but, alas, how changed, how fallen when distributing stipendiary aid to hostile hosts. Their valor was arrayed against itself, and brothers fell by the swords of brothers. They became at length the proverbial examples of mercenary disposition. And then neither liberty no[r] discipline nor courage rescued Helvetian fame from the charge of baseness.

  Thus, then, we have seen that a people may be numerous, powerful, wealthy, free, brave, and inured to war without being great, and by reflecting on the reason why a combination of those qualities and circumstances will not alone suffice. We are close to the true source and principle of national greatness.

  It is in the national spirit. It is in that high, haughty, generous, and noble spirit which prizes glory more than wealth and holds honor dearer than life. It is that spirit, the inspiring soul of heroes, which raises men above the level of humanity. It is present with us when we read the story of ancient Rome. It [s] wells our bosoms at the view of her gigantic deeds and makes us feel that we must ever be irresistible while human nature shall remain unchanged. I have called it a high, haughty, generous, and noble spirit. It is high—elevated above all low and vulgar considerations. It is haughty—despising whatever is little and mean, whether in character, council, or conduct. It is generous—granting freely to the weak and to the indigent protection and support. It is noble—dreading shame and dishonor as the greatest evil, esteeming fame and glory beyond all things human.

  When this spirit prevails, the government, whatever its form, will be wise and energetic because such government alone will be borne by such men. And such a government, seeking the true interest of those over whom they preside, will find it in the establishment of a national character becoming the spirit by which the nation is inspired. Foreign powers will then know that to withhold a due respect and deference is dangerous, that wrongs may be forgiven but that insults will be avenged. As a necessary result every member of the society bears with him everywhere full protection, and when he appears his firm and manly port mark him of a superior order in the race of man. The dignity of sentiment which he has inhaled with his native air gives to his manner an ease superior to the politeness of courts and a grace unrivaled by the majesty of kings.

  These are blessings which march in the train of national greatness and come on the pinions of youthful hope. I anticipate the day when to command respect in the remotest regions it will be sufficient to say, “I am an American.” Our flag shall then wave in glory over the ocean and our commerce feel no restraint but what our own government may impose. Happy, thrice happy day. Thank God, to reach this envied state we need only to will. Yes, my countrymen, our destiny depends on our will. But if we would stand high on the record of time, that will must be inflexible.

  Daniel Webster Speaks at the Dedication of the Bunker Hill Monument

  “Let our age be the age of improvement.”

  As a lawyer practicing before John Marshall’s Supreme Court, Daniel Webster earned the sobriquet Expounder of the Constitution. From the Webster brief in McCulloch v. Maryland, Marshall selected “An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, the power to destroy”; he edited the phrase to “the power to tax is the power to destroy” in his decision to deny states the right to tax the new federal bank. This ruling effectively established the supremacy of national over state power.

  Webster was unafraid to use the same word twice in a single sentence: the double use of “power” in that famous apothegm is similar to the repetition of “age” in the key line of his seminal Bunker Hill Monument address.

  On June 17, 1825, while a member of the House of Representatives from Massachusetts, Webster spoke at the laying of the cornerstone of that monument, at Charlestown, near Boston. In four years, the ardent nationalist would be elected to the Senate, where his eloquence placed him in the senatorial firmament along with Henry Clay and John Calhoun; Webster’s reply to Senator Hayne (see p. 283) made the case for union and against a state’s claim to the power of nullifying national laws.

  At Bunker Hill, where the British forces had won a Pyrrhic victory, Webster’s theme was the meaning to the world of the American Revolution. In a message later taken up by Lincoln, the representative from Massachusetts held that the American experiment in popular government was crucial to the hopes for freedom around the world and that “the last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us.” The tone of the speech is thoughtful and historical; the exhortation in the peroration, with its six sentences beginning with “let,” is neither grandiloquent nor shrill. In saying at the start, “We see before us a probable train of great events,” Webster set the stage for a speech in plain words that offered Americans one of their earliest glimpses of a worldview and an understanding of the new nation’s global significance. It is curious that the rising nationalist should have made the most famous internationalist speech of his day.

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  …WE ARE AMONG the sepulchers of our fathers. We are on ground distinguished by their valor, their constancy, and the shedding of their blood. We are here, not to fix an uncertain date in our annals, nor to draw into notice an obscure and unknown spot. If our humble purpose had never been conceived, if we ourselves had never been born, the seventeenth of June, 1775, would have been a day on which all subsequent history would have poured its light, and the eminence where we stand, a point of attraction to the eyes of successive generations. But we are Americans. We live in what may be called the early age of this great continent; and we know that our posterity, through all time, are here to suffer and enjoy the allotments of humanity. We see before us a probable train of great events; we know that our own fortunes have been happily cast; and it is natural, therefore, that we should be moved by the contemplation of occurrences which have guided our destiny before many of us were born, and settled the condition in which we should pass that portion of our existence which God allows to men on earth….

  The great event, in the history of the continent, which we are now met here to commemorate—that prodigy of modern times, at once the wonder and the blessing of the world—is the American Revolution. In a day of extraordinary prosperity and happiness, of high national honor, distinction, and power, we are brought together, in this place, by our love of country, by our admiration of exalted character, by our gratitude for signal services and patriotic devotion…

  The great wheel of political revolution began to move in America. Here its rotation was guarded, regular, and safe. Transferred to the other continent, from unfortunate but natural causes, it received an irregular and violent impulse; it whirled along with a fearful celerity, till at length, like the chariot wheels in the races of antiquity, it took fire from the rapidity of its own motion and blazed onward, spreading conflagration and terror around….

  When Louis XIV said, “I am the state,” he expressed the essence of the doctrine of unlimited power. By the rules of that system, the people are disconnected from the state; they are its subjects; it is their lord. These ideas, founded in the love of power, and long supported by the excess and the abuse of it, are yielding in our age to other opinions; and the civilized world seems at last to be proceeding to the conviction of that fundamental and manifest truth, that the powers of government are but a trust, and that they cannot be lawfu
lly exercised but for the good of the community….

  We may hope that the growing influence of enlightened sentiments will promote the permanent peace of the world. Wars, to maintain family alliances, to uphold or to cast down dynasties, to regulate successions to thrones, which have occupied so much room in the history of modern times, if not less likely to happen at all, will be less likely to become general and involve many nations, as the great principle shall be more and more established, that the interest of the world is peace, and its first great statute, that every nation possesses the power of establishing a government for itself. But public opinion has attained also an influence over governments which do not admit the popular principle into their organization. A necessary respect for the judgment of the world operates, in some measure, as a control over the most unlimited forms of authority…. Let us thank God that we live in an age when something has influence besides the bayonet, and when the sternest authority does not venture to encounter the scorching power of public reproach….

  When the Battle of Bunker Hill was fought, the existence of South America was scarcely felt in the civilized world. The thirteen little colonies of North America habitually called themselves the “continent.” Borne down by colonial subjugation, monopoly, and bigotry, these vast regions of the South were hardly visible above the horizon. But in our day there hath been, as it were, a new creation. The Southern Hemisphere emerges from the sea. Its lofty mountains begin to lift themselves into the light of heaven; its broad and fertile plains stretch out in beauty to the eye of civilized man, and at the mighty being of the voice of political liberty the waters of darkness retire.

  And now let us indulge an honest exultation in the conviction of the benefit which the example of our country has produced and is likely to produce on human freedom and human happiness. And let us endeavor to comprehend in all its magnitude and to feel in all its importance the part assigned to us in the great drama of human affairs. We are placed at the head of the system of representative and popular governments. Thus far our example shows that such governments are compatible, not only with respectability and power, but with repose, with peace, with security of personal rights, with good laws and a just administration.