Public Speaking: Principles and Practice Part 9

In the annals of American speech there had been no such scene since Patrick Henry's electrical warning to George the Third. It was that greatest of oratorical triumphs when a supreme emotion, a sentiment which is to mold a people anew, lifted the orator to adequate expression. Three such scenes are ill.u.s.trious in our history: that of the speech of Patrick Henry at Williamsburg, of Wendell Phillips in Faneuil Hall, of Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg,--three, and there is no fourth.

ON THE DISPOSAL OF PUBLIC LANDS

From reports of the Webster-Hayne debate in the United States Senate, January, 1830

BY ROBERT Y. HAYNE

In 1825 the gentleman told the world that the public lands "ought not to be treated as a treasure." He now tells us that "they must be treated as so much treasure." What the deliberate opinion of the gentleman on this subject may be, belongs not to me to determine; but I do not think he can, with the shadow of justice or propriety, impugn my sentiments, while his own recorded opinions are identical with my own.

When the gentleman refers to the conditions of the grants under which the United States have acquired these lands, and insists that, as they are declared to be "for the common benefit of all the States," they can only be treated as so much treasure, I think he has applied a rule of construction too narrow for the case. If, in the deeds of cession, it has been declared that the grants were intended "for the common benefit of all the States," it is clear, from other provisions, that they were not intended merely as so much property; for it is expressly declared that the object of the grants is the erection of new States; and the United States, in accepting this trust, bind themselves to facilitate the foundation of those States, to be admitted into the Union with all the rights and privileges of the original States.

This, sir, was the great end to which all parties looked, and it is by the fulfillment of this high trust that "the common benefit of all the States" is to be best promoted. Sir, let me tell the gentleman that, in the part of the country in which I live, we do not measure political benefits by the money standard. We consider as more valuable than gold, liberty, principle, and justice. But, sir, if we are bound to act on the narrow principles contended for by the gentleman, I am wholly at a loss to conceive how he can reconcile his principles with his own practice. The lands are, it seems, to be treated "as so much treasure,"

and must be applied to the "common benefit of all the States." Now, if this be so, whence does he derive the right to appropriate them for partial and local objects? How can the gentleman consent to vote away immense bodies of these lands for ca.n.a.ls in Indiana and Illinois, to the Louisville and Portland Ca.n.a.l, to Kenyon College in Ohio, to schools for the deaf and dumb, and other objects of a similar description?

THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE

From "Speeches and Presidential Addresses," Current Literature Publishing Company, New York.

BY ABRAHAM LINCOLN

I am filled with deep emotion at finding myself standing in this place, where were collected together the wisdom, the patriotism, the devotion to principle, from which sprang the inst.i.tutions under which we live.

You have kindly suggested to me that in my hands is the task of restoring peace to our distracted country. I can say in return, sir, that all the political sentiments I entertain have been drawn, so far as I have been able to draw them, from the sentiments which originated in, and were given to the world from, this hall. I have never had a feeling, politically, that did not spring from the sentiments embodied in the Declaration of Independence. I have often pondered over the dangers which were incurred by the men who a.s.sembled here and framed and adopted that Declaration. I have pondered over the toils that were endured by the officers and soldiers of the army who achieved that independence. I have often inquired of myself what great principle or idea it was that kept this Confederacy so long together. It was not the mere matter of separation of the colonies from the motherland, but that sentiment in the Declaration of Independence which gave liberty not alone to the people of this country, but hope to all the world, for all future time. It was that which gave promise that in due time the weights would be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance. This is the sentiment embodied in the Declaration of Independence. Now, my friends, can this country be saved on that basis? If it can, I shall consider myself one of the happiest men in the world if I can help to save it. If it cannot be saved upon that principle, it will be truly awful. But if this country cannot be saved without giving up that principle, I was about to say I would rather be a.s.sa.s.sinated on this spot than surrender it. Now, in my view of the present aspect of affairs, there is no need of bloodshed and war. There is no necessity for it. I am not in favor of such a course; and I may say in advance that there will be no bloodshed unless it is forced upon the government. The government will not use force, unless force is used against it.

My friends, this is wholly an unprepared speech. I did not expect to be called on to say a word when I came here. I supposed I was merely to do something toward raising a flag. I may, therefore, have said something indiscreet. But I have said nothing but what I am willing to live by, and, if it be the pleasure of Almighty G.o.d, to die by.

EXPRESSING THE FEELING

NORTHERN GREETING TO SOUTHERN VETERANS

From "Speeches and Addresses," with the permission of the author and of Houghton Mifflin Company, publishers.

BY HENRY CABOT LODGE

I was a boy ten years old when the troops marched away to defend Washington. I saw the troops, month after month, pour through the streets of Boston. I saw Shaw go forth at the head of his black regiment, and Bartlett, shattered in body, but dauntless in soul, ride by to carry what was left of him once more to the battlefields of the Republic. I saw Andrew, standing bareheaded on the steps of the State House, bid the men G.o.dspeed. I cannot remember the words he said, but I can never forget the fervid eloquence which brought tears to the eyes and fire to the hearts of all who listened. To my boyish mind one thing alone was clear, that the soldiers, as they marched past, were all, in that supreme hour, heroes and patriots. Other feelings have, in the progress of time, altered much, but amid many changes that simple belief of boyhood has never altered.

And you, brave men who wore the gray, would be the first to hold me or any other son of the North in just contempt if I should say that now it was all over I thought the North was wrong and the result of the war a mistake. To the men who fought the battles of the Confederacy we hold out our hands freely, frankly, and gladly. We have no bitter memories to revive, no reproaches to utter. Differ in politics and in a thousand other ways we must and shall in all good nature, but never let us differ with each other on sectional or state lines, by race or creed.

We welcome you, soldiers of Virginia, as others more eloquent than I have said, to New England. We welcome you to old Ma.s.sachusetts. We welcome you to Boston and to Faneuil Hall. In your presence here, and at the sound of your voices beneath this historic roof, the years roll back, and we see the figure and hear again the ringing tones of your great orator, Patrick Henry, declaring to the first Continental Congress, "The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American."

A distinguished Frenchman, as he stood among the graves of Arlington, said: "Only a great people is capable of a great civil war." Let us add with thankful hearts that only a great people is capable of a great reconciliation. Side by side Virginia and Ma.s.sachusetts led the colonies into the War for Independence. Side by side they founded the government of the United States. Morgan and Greene, Lee and Knox, Moultrie and Prescott, men of the South and men of the North, fought shoulder to shoulder, and wore the same uniform of buff and blue,--the uniform of Washington.

Mere sentiment all this, some may say. But it is sentiment, true sentiment, that has moved the world. Sentiment fought the war, and sentiment has reunited us.

So I say that the sentiment manifested by your presence here, brethren of Virginia, sitting side by side with those who wore the blue, tells us that if war should break again upon the country the sons of Virginia and Ma.s.sachusetts would, as in the olden days, stand once more shoulder to shoulder, with no distinction in the colors that they wear. It is fraught with tidings of peace on earth, and you may read its meaning in the words on yonder picture, "Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable!"

MATCHES AND OVERMATCHES

From Webster's reply to Hayne in the United States Senate, January, 1830, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

If, sir, the honorable member, _modestia gratia_, had chosen thus to defer to his friend and to pay him a compliment without intentional disparagement to others, it would have been quite according to the friendly courtesies of debate, and not at all ungrateful to my own feelings. I am not one of those, sir, who esteem any tribute of regard, whether light and occasional or more serious and deliberate, which may be bestowed on others, as so much unjustly withholden from themselves.

But the tone and manner of the gentleman's question forbid me thus to interpret it, I am not at liberty to consider it as nothing more than a civility to his friend. It had an air of taunt and disparagement, something of the loftiness of a.s.serted superiority, which does not allow me to pa.s.s it over without notice. It was put as a question for me to answer, and so put as if it were difficult for me to answer, whether I deemed the member from Missouri an overmatch for myself in debate here. It seems to me, sir, that this is extraordinary language and an extraordinary tone for the discussions of this body.

Matches and overmatches! Those terms are more applicable elsewhere than here, and fitter for other a.s.semblies than this. Sir, the gentleman seems to forget where and what we are. This is a senate, a senate of equals, of men of individual honor and personal character and of absolute independence. We know no masters, we acknowledge no dictators.

This is a hall for mutual consultation and discussion; not an arena for the exhibitions of champions. I offer myself, sir, as a match for no man; I throw the challenge of debate at no man's feet. But then, sir, since the honorable member has put the question in a manner that calls for an answer, I will give him an answer; and tell him that, holding myself to be the humblest of the members here, I yet know nothing in the arm of his friend from Missouri, either alone or when aided by the arm of _his_ friend from South Carolina, that need deter even me from espousing whatever opinions I may choose to espouse, from debating whenever I may choose to debate, or from speaking whatever I may see fit to say on the floor of the Senate.

THE COALITION

From the reply to Hayne

"The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster," Little, Brown and Company, Boston, publishers.

BY DANIEL WEBSTER

Sir, I shall not allow myself, on this occasion, I hope on no occasion, to betray myself into any loss of temper; but if provoked, as I trust I never shall be, into crimination and recrimination, the honorable member may perhaps find that, in that contest, there will be blows to take as well as to give; that others can state comparisons as significant, at least, as his own, and that his impunity may possibly demand of him whatever powers of taunt and sarcasm he may possess. I commend him to a prudent husbandry of his resources.

But, sir, the Coalition! The Coalition! Aye, "the murdered Coalition!"

The gentleman asks if I were led or frighted into this debate by the specter of the Coalition. "Was it the ghost of the murdered Coalition,"

he exclaims, "which haunted the member from Ma.s.sachusetts; and which, like the ghost of Banquo, would never down?" "The murdered Coalition!"

Sir, this charge of a coalition, in reference to the late administration, is not original with the honorable member. It did not spring up in the Senate. Whether as a fact, as an argument, or as an embellishment, it is all borrowed. He adopts it, indeed, from a very low origin, and a still lower present condition. It is one of the thousand calumnies with which the press teemed during an excited political canva.s.s. It was a charge of which there was not only no proof or probability, but which was in itself wholly impossible to be true.

No man of common information ever believed a syllable of it. Yet it was of that cla.s.s of falsehoods which, by continued repet.i.tion, through all the organs of detraction and abuse, are capable of misleading those who are already far misled, and of further fanning pa.s.sion already kindling into flame. Doubtless it served in its day, and in greater or less degree, the end designed by it. Having done that, it has sunk into the general ma.s.s of stale and loathed calumnies. It is the very cast-off slough of a polluted and shameless press. Incapable of further mischief, it lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is not now, sir, in the power of the honorable member to give it dignity or decency by attempting to elevate it and to introduce it into the Senate. He cannot change it from what it is, an object of general disgust and scorn. On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch it, is more likely to drag him down, down to the place where it lies itself.

IN HIS OWN DEFENSE

BY ROBERT EMMET

I am asked what I have to say why sentence of death should not be p.r.o.nounced on me, according to law.

I am charged with being an emissary of France. An emissary of France!

and for what end? It is alleged that I wish to sell the independence of my country; and for what end? Was this the object of my ambition? And is this the mode by which a tribunal of justice reconciles contradictions? No; I am no emissary; and my ambition was to hold a place among the deliverers of my country, not in power nor in profit, but in the glory of the achievement. Sell my country's independence to France! and for what? Was it for a change of masters? No, but for ambition. O my country! was it personal ambition that could influence me? Had it been the soul of my actions, could I not by my education and fortune, by the rank and consideration of my family, have placed myself amongst the proudest of your oppressors? My country was my idol! To it I sacrificed every selfish, every endearing sentiment; and for it I now offer up my life.

My lords, you are impatient for the sacrifice. Be yet patient! I have but a few more words to say--I am going to my cold and silent grave--my lamp of life is nearly extinguished--my race is run--the grave opens to receive me, and I sink into its bosom. I have but one request to ask at my departure from this world: it is--the charity of its silence. Let no man write my epitaph; for, as no man who knows my motives dares now vindicate them, let not prejudice or ignorance asperse them. Let them and me rest in obscurity and peace, and my tomb remain uninscribed, until other times and other men can do justice to my character. When my country takes her place among the nations of the earth, then, and not till then, let my epitaph be written. I have done.

ON RESISTANCE TO GREAT BRITAIN

From a speech in the Provincial Convention, Virginia, March, 1775

BY PATRICK HENRY