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®
Book of
Great American Speeches for
Young People
Edited by Suzanne McIntire
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
New York • Chichester • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto
fcopyebk.qxd 8/15/01 9:52 AM Page ii
For my children,
Phinney and Will
Copyright © 2001 by Suzanne McIntire. All rights reserved
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Acknowledgments
t has been my great pleasure in compiling this collection to
work with dedicated historians and librarians of historical
societies and state and university libraries across the country
who so willingly hunted up information, often the same day.
There are too many to name here, but their efforts were most
appreciated. I must especially thank the librarians of Arlington, Virginia, particularly Dan Cannole, Lynn Kristianson,
and Diane Marton and Kristi Beavin of the Children’s Room.
More thanks go to Celia Blotkamp of the Northern Virginia
Speech League; the faculty of Potomac School, especially
Cathy Farrell, Christine Hunt, Curt Bland, and Dan Newman;
Carol Fonteyn and Joe Lerner; Lydia Schurman; Kirsten
Manges and Clyde Taylor; and Kate Bradford and Michelle
Whelan, who had many good ideas for the book. And my
family, who pitched in when I needed them.
I
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Freedom of speech is indivisible. You cannot deny it to one
man and save it for others. Over and over again, the test of our
dedication to liberty is our willingness to allow the expression
of ideas we hate. If those ideas are lies, the remedy is more speech. . . .
The price of liberty to speak the truth as each of us sees it
is permitting others the same freedom.
—Archibald Cox
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Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Powhatan, Chief of the Powhatan Confederacy (1609) . . . 5
To Captain John Smith
Big Mouth, Onondaga Chief (1684) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
To De la Barre, Governor of Canada
Andrew Hamilton (1735) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
In Defense of John Peter Zenger and the Freedom of the Press
Canasatego, Onondaga Chief (1744) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
“We Will Make Men of Them”
John Hancock (1774) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
On the Fourth Anniversary of the Boston Massacre
Logan, Mingo Chief (1774) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
To Lord Dunmore
Patrick Henry (1775) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
“Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death”
Solomon, Stockbridge Chief (1775) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
“We Have Ever Been True Friends”
Samuel Adams (1776) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
To the Continental Congress
Benjamin Franklin (1787) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
To the Constitutional Convention
Jonathan Smith (1788) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
To the Massachusetts Convention
George Washington (1796) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
“Observe Good Faith and Justice towards All Nations”
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Contents
Thomas Jefferson (1801) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
First Inaugural Address
Red Jacket, Seneca Chief (1805) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
“We Never Quarrel about Religion”
Tecumseh, Shawnee Chief (1811) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
“Sleep Not Longer, O Choctaws and Chickasaws”
Pushmataha, Choctaw Chief (1824) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Welcome to Lafayette
Daniel Webster (1825) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Bunker Hill Oration
Black Hawk, Sauk Chief (1832) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
“Farewell to Black Hawk”
Sam Houston (1836) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
“Remember the Alamo!”
Elijah Lovejoy (1837) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
In Defense of a Free Press
Angelina Grimke (1838) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
“What Has the North to Do with Slavery?”
Henry Highland Garnet (1843) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
The Call to Rebellion
Lewis Richardson (1846) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
“My Grave Shall Be Made in Free Soil”
Thomas Corwin (1847) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Against War with Mexico
Frederick Douglass (1847) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
“If I Had a Country, I Should Be a Patriot”
Henry Clay (1850) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
A Call for a Measure of Compromise
Sojourner Truth (1851) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
“If You Have Woman’s Rights, Give Them to Her”
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Contents
Frederick Douglass (1852) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
“What to the American Slave Is Your Fourth of July?”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1854) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
On the Fugitive Slave Law
Seattle, Duwamish Chief (1854) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
“We Will Dwell Apart and in Peace”
Lucy Stone (1855) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
“A Disappointed Woman”
Abraham Lincoln (1858) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
“A House Divided”
Stephen Douglas (1858) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Sixth Lincoln-Douglas Debate
John Brown (1859) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
To the Court after Sentencing
William Lloyd Garrison (1859) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
On the Death of John Brown
Jefferson Davis (1861) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Farewell to the Senate
Abraham Lincoln (1863) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
The Gettysburg Address
Abraham Lincoln (1865) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
“With Malice toward None, with Charity for All”
Henry M. Turner (1868) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
“I Hold That I Am a Member of This Body”
George Graham Vest (1870) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
Eulogy on the Dog
Cochise, Chiricahua Apache Chief (1872) . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
“We Will Remain at Peace with Your People Forever”
Susan B. Anthony (1873) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
“Are Women Persons?”
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Contents
Chief Joseph, Nez Perce (1877) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
“I Will Fight No More Forever”
Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1892) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
“The Solitude of Self”
William Jennings Bryan (1896) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
“A Cross of Gold”
Russell Conwell (late 1890s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
“Acres of Diamonds”
Harry Gladstone (1898) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
To the Machine Tenders Union
Mother Jones (1901) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
To the United Mine Workers of America
Florence Kelley (1905) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
“Freeing the Children from Toil”
Mark Twain (1906) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
“In Behalf of Simplified Spelling”
Theodore Roosevelt (1910) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Citizenship in a Republic
Rose Schneiderman (1911) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
On the Triangle Shirtwaist Company Fire
John Jay Chapman (1912) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
The Coatesville Address
Stephen S. Wise (1914) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Tribute to Lincoln
Woodrow Wilson (1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
“An Oath of Allegiance to a Great Ideal”
Anna Howard Shaw (1915) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
The Fundamental Principle of a Republic
Woodrow Wilson (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
“The World Must Be Made Safe for Democracy”
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Contents
Emma Goldman (1917) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
“First Make Democracy Safe in America”
Eugene V. Debs (1918) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
“While There Is a Lower Class, I Am in It”
Clarence Darrow (1924) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
In Defense of Leopold and Loeb
Alfred E. Smith (1928) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
“Anything Un-American Cannot Live in the Sunlight”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1933) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
“The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”
Lou Gehrig (1939) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
“The Luckiest Man on the Face of the Earth”
Harold Ickes (1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
“What Constitutes an American?”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1941) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
“A Date Which Will Live in Infamy”
Learned Hand (1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
“The Spirit of Liberty”
Dwight D. Eisenhower (1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
“The Eyes of the World Are upon You”
Franklin D. Roosevelt (1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
The Fala Address
Douglas MacArthur (1944) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
“People of the Philippines: I Have Returned”
Roland Gittelsohn (1945) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Eulogy at the Marine Corps Cemetery
Albert Einstein (1947) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
To the United Nations
Margaret Chase Smith (1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
“The Four Horsemen of Calumny”
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Contents
William Faulkner (1950) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
“I Decline to Accept the End of Man”
Pearl Buck (1951) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Forbidden to Speak at Cardozo High School Graduation
Charlotta Bass (1952) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 187
“Let My People Go”
Richard Nixon (1952) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 190
The Checkers Speech
Martin Luther King Jr. (1955) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192
“There Comes a Time When People Get Tired”
Langston Hughes (1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194
“On the Blacklist All Our Lives”
Roy Wilkins (1957) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
“The Clock Will Not Be Turned Back”
John F. Kennedy (1961) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
“Ask What You Can Do for Your Country”
Douglas MacArthur (1962) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204
“Duty, Honor, Country”
John F. Kennedy (1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
“Let Them Come to Berlin”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
“I Have a Dream”
Charles B. Morgan Jr. (1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
“Four Little Girls Were Killed”
Earl Warren (1963) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
Eulogy for President John F. Kennedy
Malcolm X (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
“The Ballot or the Bullet”
Barry Goldwater (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220
“Extremism in the Defense of Liberty Is No Vice”
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Contents
Mario Savio (1964) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
“History Has Not Ended”
Lyndon Baines Johnson (1965) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
“We Shall Overcome”
Adlai Stevenson (1965) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
To the United Nations
William Sloane Coffin Jr. (1967) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
“The Anvil of Individual Conscience”
Cesar Chavez (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
“God Help Us to Be Men!”
J. William Fulbright (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
“The Focus Is Vietnam”
Martin Luther King Jr. (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
“I’ve Been to the Mountaintop”
Robert F. Kennedy (1968) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 242
On the Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
Shirley Chisholm (1969) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245
“The Business of America Is War”
Frank James (1970) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 248
On the 350th Anniversary of Plymouth
Archibald Cox (1971) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 251
“The Price of Liberty to Speak the Truth”
Barbara Jordan (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253
“My Faith in the Constitution Is Whole”
Richard Nixon (1974) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 256
“I Shall Resign the Presidency”
Silvio Conte (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 258
“I Must ‘Raise a Beef’ about This Bill”
Dr. Seuss (1977) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260
Commencement Address at Lake Forest College
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Contents
Esther Cohen (1981) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261
At the Liberators Conference
Samantha Smith (1983) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 263
“Look Around and See Only Friends”
Ronald Reagan (1986) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266
To the Nation on the Challenger Disaster
Thurgood Marshall (1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 268
On the Bicentennial of the Constitution
Ronald Reagan (1987) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 271
“Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!”
Jesse Jackson (1988) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 274
To the Democratic National Convention
Daniel Inouye (1993) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276
To the 442nd Infantry Regimental Combat Team
Cal Ripken Jr. (1995) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279
To His Fans
Charles S. Robb (2000) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 281
“They Died for That Which Can Never Burn”
Appendix: To the Young Speaker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 285
Permissions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 287
Photo Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 288
Index of Speakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 289
Index of Themes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 291
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Introduction
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the
price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I
know not what course others may take; but as
for me, give me liberty or give me death.”
—Patrick Henry (1775)
mericans in every century have found inspiration in the
speech-making of Patrick Henry. His daring address to
the Virginia Convention in Richmond, with its famous call to
revolution, persuaded the assembled delegates to arm the Virginia militia to resist British oppression, and could have cost
him his life had the British won the Revolutionary War.
Some forty years after Patrick Henry’s address, Frederick
Douglass was born. He was a Maryland slave who would also
fight for his freedom, and for the freedom of all slaves in
America. He founded an anti-slavery newspaper and entered
politics, but his great weapon was his speech-making.
As a boy he owned a book not unlike the one you’re now
holding, which he bought with the few pennies a slave boy
could save. The book was called The Columbian Orator, and
contained speeches to teach schoolchildren the art of public
speaking. The speeches exposed him to exciting ideas about
liberty and equality. “Every opportunity I got, I used to read
this book,” he explained in his autobiography. Although
young Frederick was never allowed to go to school, he must
have learned from the book, for he became one of the greatest
orators the United States ever produced. When he escaped
from slavery, the book was one of the few things he took with
him.
A
1
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Great American Speeches for Young People
Oratory such as that of Patrick Henry or Frederick Douglass flourishes wherever you find freedom of speech, a right
guaranteed to Americans by the Constitution but withheld
from many people of the world who live under dictatorships
and totalitarian governments. Events in United States history—slavery, war, women’s rights, child labor, the atomic
bomb, to mention a few—have always supplied issues to
debate. The American town meeting gave people with ideas a
place to be heard. And in the days before TV or radio, the
speeches of the popular frontier “stump speaker” (who stood
on a tree stump to speak) were attended by whole families
who traveled miles by wagon to enjoy the scene.
Over a hundred great speeches by Americans are gathered
together in this new book of oratory for a new generation of
young people. The selection spans almost four centuries of
the best of American eloquence, from Powhatan’s warning to
Captain John Smith in 1609 to Senator Charles Robb’s
thoughtful reflection, in the year 2000, on the meaning of the
flag.
But what is eloquence? Eloquence is the power to persuade
with forceful and fluent speech. It relies on passion and
straightforwardness for its influence over a crowd. When we
read these speeches, we begin to understand why a Chicago
newspaper reported that people fought in the halls to get into
the courtroom to hear Clarence Darrow speak, and why Martin Luther King wept on hearing President Johnson exclaim
“We shall overcome.” We can almost see in our mind’s eye the
thousand tomahawks that early frontiersmen saw brandished
by the impassioned hearers of Tecumseh. Sometimes the passion is for a special person, or people, instead of a cause: such
as the moving tributes to Lincoln and Lafayette, to the men
who fought and died at Gettysburg and Iwo Jima, and to the
four innocent girls who died in the bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church.