Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History Read online

  We are not propagandists. Wherever other systems are preferred, either as being thought better in themselves or as better suited to existing conditions, we leave the preference to be enjoyed. Our history hitherto proves, however, that the popular form is practicable and that, with wisdom and knowledge, men may govern themselves; and the duty incumbent on us is to preserve the consistency of this cheering example and take care that nothing may weaken its authority with the world. If in our case the representative system ultimately fail, popular governments must be pronounced impossible. No combination of circumstances more favorable to the experiment can ever be expected to occur. The last hopes of mankind, therefore, rest with us; and if it should be proclaimed that our example had become an argument against the experiment, the knell of popular liberty would be sounded throughout the earth.

  These are incitements to duty; but they are not suggestions of doubt. Our history and our condition, all that is gone before us and all that surrounds us, authorize the belief that popular governments, though subject to occasional variations, perhaps not always for the better in form, may yet in their general character be as durable and permanent as other systems. We know, indeed, that in our country any other is impossible. The principle of free governments adheres to the American soil. It is bedded in it—immovable as its mountains.

  And let the sacred obligations which have devolved on this generation and on us sink deep into our hearts. Those are daily dropping from among us who established our liberty and our government. The great trust now descends to new hands. Let us apply ourselves to that which is presented to us as our appropriate object. We can win no laurels in a war for independence. Earlier and worthier hands have gathered them all. Nor are there places for us by the side of Solon, and Alfred, and other founders of states. Our fathers have filled them. But there remains to us a great duty of defense and preservation; and there is opened to us also a noble pursuit to which the spirit of the times strongly invites us.

  Our proper business is improvement. Let our age be the age of improvement. In a day of peace let us advance the arts of peace and the works of peace. Let us develop the resources of our land, call forth its powers, build up its institutions, promote all its great interests, and see whether we also, in our day and generation, may not perform something worthy to be remembered. Let us cultivate a true spirit of union and harmony. In pursuing the great objects which our condition points out to us, let us act under a settled conviction, and a habitual feeling that these twenty-four states are one country. Let our conceptions be enlarged to the circle of our duties. Let us extend our ideas over the whole of the vast field in which we are called to act. Let our object be our country, our whole country, and nothing but our country. And by the blessing of God may that country itself become a vast and splendid monument, not of oppression and terror, but of wisdom, of peace, and of liberty, upon which the world may gaze with admiration, forever.

  Lecturer Frances Wright Speaks on Independence Day

  “Patriotism, in the exclusive meaning, is surely not made for America.”

  Scottish-born Frances Wright was the first woman to gain fame giving public lectures in America, and more than once she was nearly mobbed for this audacity.

  After her first visit to the United States, Frances Wright produced Views of Society and Manners in America, an 1821 book in favor of American life. She returned to America in 1824 and this time stayed for good—the good being social reform, including the founding of Nashoba, a colony for free blacks in Tennessee. Although that venture failed, she continued writing and lecturing to promote abolition as well as universal education and equal rights for women.

  She lived for a time in New Harmony, Indiana, the cooperative colony founded by Robert Owen, the Welsh social reformer. At New Harmony, she delivered her Independence Day address on July 4, 1828. Her definitions of “patriotism” and America as “the favored scene of human improvement” emphasize the liberal views that permeated her lectures on marriage and religion as well as on social reform.

  With parallel structure that begins with “It is for Americans,” Frances Wright forcefully uses anaphora, the repetition of a phrase, in six consecutive sentences to tell Americans what “it is for them” to do to celebrate and extend their independence.

  ***

  …OUR HEARTS SHOULD expand on this day, which calls to memory the conquest achieved by knowledge over ignorance, willing cooperation over blind obedience, opinion over prejudice, new ways over old ways—when, fifty-two years ago, America declared her national independence, and associated it with her republic federation. Reasonable is it to rejoice on this day, and useful to reflect thereon; so that we rejoice for the real, and not any imaginary, good; and reflect on the positive advantages obtained, and on those which it is ours farther to acquire.

  Dating, as we justly may, a new era in the history of man from the Fourth of July, 1776, it would be well—that is, it would be useful—if on each anniversary we examined the progress made by our species in just knowledge and just practice. Each Fourth of July would then stand as a tidemark in the flood of time by which to ascertain the advance of the human intellect, by which to note the rise and fall of each successive error, the discovery of each important truth, the gradual melioration in our public institutions, social arrangements, and, above all, in our moral feelings and mental views….

  In continental Europe, of late years, the words “patriotism” and “patriot” have been used in a more enlarged sense than it is usual here to attribute to them, or than is attached to them in Great Britain. Since the political struggles of France, Italy, Spain, and Greece, the word “patriotism” has been employed, throughout continental Europe, to express a love of the public good; a preference for the interests of the many to those of the few; a desire for the emancipation of the human race from the thrall of despotism, religious and civil: in short, “patriotism” there is used rather to express the interest felt in the human race in general than that felt for any country, or inhabitants of a country, in particular. And “patriot,” in like manner, is employed to signify a lover of human liberty and human improvement rather than a mere lover of the country in which he lives, or the tribe to which he belongs.

  Used in this sense, patriotism is a virtue, and a patriot a virtuous man. With such an interpretation, a patriot is a useful member of society, capable of enlarging all minds and bettering all hearts with which he comes in contact; a useful member of the human family, capable of establishing fundamental principles and of merging his own interests, those of his associates, and those of his nation in the interests of the human race. Laurels and statues are vain things, and mischievous as they are childish; but could we imagine them of use, on such a patriot alone could they be with any reason bestowed….

  If such a patriotism as we have last considered should seem likely to obtain in any country, it should be certainly in this. In this which is truly the home of all nations and in the veins of whose citizens flows the blood of every people on the globe. Patriotism, in the exclusive meaning, is surely not made for America. Mischievous everywhere, it were here both mischievous and absurd. The very origin of the people is opposed to it. The institutions, in their principle, militate against it. The day we are celebrating protests against it.

  It is for Americans, more especially, to nourish a nobler sentiment, one more consistent with their origin, and more conducive to their future improvement. It is for them more especially to know why they love their country; and to feel that they love it, not because it is their country, but because it is the palladium of human liberty—the favored scene of human improvement. It is for them, more especially, to examine their institutions; and to feel that they honor them because they are based on just principles. It is for them, more especially, to examine their institutions, because they have the means of improving them; to examine their laws, because at will they can alter them. It is for them to lay aside luxury whose wealth is in industry; idle parade whose strength is in knowledge; ambit
ious distinctions whose principle is equality. It is for them not to rest, satisfied with words, who can seize upon things; and to remember that equality means, not the mere equality of political rights, however valuable, but equality of instruction and equality in virtue; and that liberty means, not the mere voting at elections, but the free and fearless exercise of the mental faculties and that self-possession which springs out of well-reasoned opinions and consistent practice. It is for them to honor principles rather than men—to commemorate events rather than days; when they rejoice, to know for what they rejoice, and to rejoice only for what has brought and what brings peace and happiness to men.

  The event we commemorate this day has procured much of both, and shall procure in the onward course of human improvement more than we can now conceive of. For this—for the good obtained and yet in store for our race—let us rejoice! But let us rejoice as men, not as children—as human beings rather than as Americans—as reasoning beings, not as ignorants. So shall we rejoice to good purpose and in good feeling; so shall we improve the victory once on this day achieved, until all mankind hold with us the Jubilee of Independence.

  Lincoln Rededicates the Union at Gettysburg

  “…A new birth of freedom…”

  “I shall be glad,” wrote orator Edward Everett to the president a day after the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, “if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion in two hours as you did in two minutes.” Lincoln replied, “In our respective parts yesterday, you could not have been excused to make a short address, nor I a long one….”

  The back-of-the-envelope legend is strictly a legend; this carefully composed speech was not written on the way to the event. Noah Brooks, Lincoln’s favorite reporter, stated that some days before the November 19, 1863, dedication, he saw Lincoln in Washington and that the president told him his Gettysburg remarks were “written, ‘but not finished.’”

  In an early draft, according to historian J. G. Randall, “It is for us, the living, to stand here” was changed to “…to be dedicated here.” After the speech was delivered, Lincoln made further revisions in the copy to be distributed to the Associated Press; it included “under God,” which he had added on the podium; perhaps he recalled Treasury Secretary Chase’s admonition to add a reference to the Deity to the Emancipation Proclamation, issued at the start of 1863.

  The 266-word address opens with “Four score and seven,” adding a note of biblical solemnity to the number 87. It concludes with a succession of parallel phrases that may have been inspired by abolitionist preacher Theodore Parker, who in 1850 wrote, “This [American] idea, demands… a democracy, that is, a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people….”

  The speech can be read as a poem based on the metaphor of birth, death, and rebirth—with its subtle evocation of the resurrection of Christ—and focused on the theme of the nation’s rededication to the principle of freedom.

  Four images of birth are embedded in its opening sentence: the nation was “conceived in liberty”; “brought forth,” or born, “by our fathers“; with all men “created equal.” This birth is followed by images of death—“final resting place,” “who gave their lives,” “brave men, living and dead,” “these honored dead”—and by verbs of religious purification—“consecrate… hallow.”

  After the nation’s symbolic birth and death comes resurrection: out of the scene of death, “this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom” and thus “not perish,” but be immortal.

  The central word, as Lincoln’s emendation of his early draft illustrates, is “dedicate”—used five times in the short speech, its meaning rooted in consecration, making the secular sacred by pledging it to God. The first two dedications are to the Declaration of Independence’s ideal—“that all men are created equal.” The third dedication centers on the purpose of the occasion at Gettysburg’s bloody battleground, “to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place.” The fourth and fifth are rededications to the ideals of the reborn nation: “to the unfinished work” and “to the great task remaining before us.”

  Birth of a nation and its ideal; its symbolic death and purification in civil war; its rebirth in freedom with “increased devotion to that cause”—a profound and timeless idea, poetically presented in metaphor and a reverent tone, rolling toward its conclusion of immortality with a succession of four “that” clauses that lend themselves to rhythmic delivery—no wonder this is recognized so widely as the best short speech since the Sermon on the Mount.

  ***

  FOUR SCORE AND seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

  But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate—we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember, what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

  Mark Twain Celebrates the Fourth of July

  “The… Fourth of July is not perfect as it stands. See what it costs us every year….”

  American humorist Mark Twain was in London on July 4, 1899, and was asked to deliver one of the speeches at the Fourth of July dinner given there by the American society. After a series of speakers that included Joseph Hodges Choate, America’s new ambassador to Great Britain, Twain delivered his address, “The Day We Celebrate.”

  Typical of Twain’s anecdotal style, this speech veered dangerously far afield from the stated topic of Independence Day. Differences in etiquette and language began his address, as he raised the usage question of “an historical” that has continued to be linguistically controversial throughout the twentieth century. With little pretense of transitions, Twain moved from his story of the clergyman’s hat to an assessment of the financial and physical dangers of the Fourth of July, a day that sparks “the old war spirit.”

  Eight years later on July 4, when Twain addressed the same society, he embellished his assessment with a tall tale. On Independence Day, he said, one of his uncles had “opened his mouth to hurrah, and a rocket went down his throat…. It blew up and scattered him all over the forty-five states, and—really, now, this is true—I know about it myself—twenty-four hours after that it was raining buttons, recognizable as his, on the Atlantic seaboard.”

  ***

  I NOTICED IN Ambassador Choate’s speech that he said, “You may be Americans or Englishmen, but you cannot be both at the same time.” You responded by applause.

  Consider the effect of a short residence here. I find the ambassador rises first to speak to a toast, followed by a senator, and I come third. What a subtle tribute that to monarchial influence of the country when you place rank above respectability!

  I was born modest, and if I had not been things like this would force it upon me. I understand it quite well. I am here to see that between them they do justice to the day we celebrate, and in case they do not I must do it myself. But I notice they
have considered this day merely from one side—its sentimental, patriotic, poetic side. But it has another side. It has a commercial, a business side that needs reforming. It has a historical side.

  I do not say “an” historical side, because I am speaking the American language. I do not see why our cousins should continue to say “an” hospital, “an” historical fact, “an” horse. It seems to me the Congress of Women, now in session, should look to it. I think “an” is having a little too much to do with it. It comes of habit, which accounts for many things.

  Yesterday, for example, I was at a luncheon party. At the end of the party a great dignitary of the English Established Church went away half an hour before anybody else and carried off my hat. Now, that was an innocent act on his part. He went out first and, of course, had the choice of hats. As a rule, I try to get out first myself. But I hold that it was an innocent, unconscious act, due, perhaps, to heredity. He was thinking about ecclesiastical matters, and when a man is in that condition of mind he will take anybody’s hat. The result was that the whole afternoon I was under the influence of his clerical hat and could not tell a lie. Of course, he was hard at it.

  It is a compliment to both of us. His hat fitted me exactly; my hat fitted him exactly. So I judge I was born to rise to high dignity in the church somehow or other, but I do not know what he was born for. That is an illustration of the influence of habit, and it is perceptible here when they say “an” hospital, “an” European, “an” historical.