Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  “Perhaps the most dramatic scene that ever took place in the Senate Chamber—old or new—,” wrote John Forney in his 1873 Anecdotes of Public Men, “was that between [John Cabell] Breckinridge and Colonel E. D. Baker of Oregon on the 1st of August 1861.”

  Breckinridge, vice-president of the United States under James Buchanan, had run for president in 1860 and lost to Lincoln, but the popular young Kentuckian was returned to the Senate. He sought a compromise between North and South, remaining in the Senate after the southern states seceded, a lonely voice earning the enmity of Union defenders. So long as he dissented “in his place”—as representative of a loyal border state, in the Senate Chamber—his criticism of Lincoln’s repression of civil liberties in the name of preserving the nation could not be prosecuted as a crime.

  Edwin Baker had served in the Black Hawk War and the Illinois state legislature with Lincoln; he was one of the president’s closest friends and the namesake of Lincoln’s firstborn. Baker served with distinction in the Mexican war, at one point with both U. S. Grant and R. E. Lee as his subordinates; he donned his uniform again as the Civil War began, and—in boots and riding crop—entered the Senate that day to clash with Breckinridge, whom he knew and liked. James Blaine of Maine later wrote, “In the history of the Senate, no more thrilling speech was ever delivered” than Ned Baker’s.

  Baker, whose slashing oratory was heightened by a series of accusing questions, was to fall at Ball’s Bluff; Breckinridge was to serve as a Confederate general in charge of Kentucky’s “Orphan Brigade”—troops of rebels from a state loyal to the Union—and in the war’s final stages as Confederate secretary of war.

  Their words, spoken without notes, were transcribed and published in the Congressional Globe of August 2; to lend clarity and dramatic impact, I have broken up the mostly uninterrupted speeches into refutations of each other’s main points. The “Tarpeian Rock” interrupting voice was incorrectly presumed by Breckinridge to be Charles Sumner of Massachusetts; the senator who recalled the execution ground for Roman traitors was William Pitt Fessenden of Maine. The debate was occasioned by proposals to establish martial law and to punish sedition, actions that Baker thought necessary to silence agitation capable of weakening the Union war effort and that Breckinridge thought undermined the principle of liberty they sought to defend.

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  [BRECKINRIDGE:] I am quite aware that all I say is received with a sneer of incredulity in this body. But let the future determine who was right and who was wrong. We are making our record here; I, my humble one, amid the aversion of nearly all who surround me. I have forgotten what an approving voice sounds like, and am surrounded by scowls….

  What is this bill but vesting first in the discretion of the president, to be by him detailed to a subaltern military commander, the authority to enter the commonwealth of Kentucky, to abolish the state, to abolish the judiciary, and to substitute just such rules as that military commander may choose. This bill contains provisions conferring authority which never was exercised in the worst days of Rome, by the worst of her dictators.

  I have wondered why this bill was introduced. Possibly to prevent the expression of that reaction which is now evidently going on in the public mind against these procedures so fatal to constitutional liberty. The army may be used, perhaps, to collect the enormous direct taxes to come to finance the war.

  Mr. President, gentlemen here talk about the Union as if it was an end instead of a means. Take care that in pursuing one idea you do not destroy not only the Constitution of your country, but sever what remains of the federal Union.

  [BAKER:] A question.

  [BRECKINRIDGE:] I prefer no interruptions. The senator from California will have the floor later.

  [BAKER:] Oregon.

  [BRECKINRIDGE:] The senator seems to have charge of the whole Pacific coast…. Oregon, then. I desire the country to know this fact: that it is openly avowed upon this floor that the Constitution is put aside in a struggle like this. You are acting just as if there were two nations upon this continent. one arrayed against the other; some twenty million on one side, and some twelve million on the other as to whom the Constitution is naught, and the rules of war alone apply.

  The “war power,” whatever that means, applies to external enemies only. I do not believe it applies to any of our political communities bound by the Constitution in this association. Nor do I believe that the founders ever contemplated the preservation of the Union of these states by one half the states warring on the other half.

  Mr. President, we are on the wrong tack; we have been from the beginning. The people begin to see it. Here we have been hurling gallant fellows on to death, and the blood of Americans has been shed—for what? To carry out principles that three-fourths of them abhor; for the principles of despotism contained in this bill before us.

  Nothing but ruin, utter ruin, to the North and South, to the East and West, will follow the prosecution of this contest. You may look forward to innumerable armies. You may look forward to raising and borrowing vast treasures for the purpose of ravaging and desolating this continent. At the end, we will be just where we are now. Or if you are gloriously victorious, and succeed in ravaging the South, what will you do with it? Can you not see what is so plain to the world, that what you insist on seeing as a mere faction is a whole people, wanting to go its own way?

  To accomplish your purpose, it will be necessary to subjugate, to conquer, aye, to exterminate—nearly ten million people! Does anybody here not know that? Does anyone here hope vainly for conquest without carnage?

  Let us pause while there is still time for men of good will to draw back from hatred and bloodshed. Let the Congress of the United States respond here and now to the feeling, rising all over this land, in favor of peace.

  [BAKER:] A few words as to the senator’s predictions. The senator from Kentucky stands up here in a manly way, in opposition to what he sees as the overwhelming sentiment of the Senate, and utters reproof, malediction, and prediction combined. Well, sir, it is not every prediction that is prophecy.

  What would have been thought, if in another capitol, in another republic, in a yet more martial age, a senator as grave, not more eloquent or dignified than the senator from Kentucky, yet with the Roman purple flowing over his shoulders, had risen in his place, surrounded by all the illustrations of Roman glory, and declared that advancing Hannibal was just and that Carthage ought to be dealt with in terms of peace?

  What would have been thought if, after the battle of Cannae, a senator there had risen in his place and denounced every levy of the Roman people, every expenditure of its treasures, and every appeal to the old glories?

  [VOICE:] He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock!

  [BAKER:] Yes, a colleague more learned than I says that the speaker of such words would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock. It is a grand commentary on the American Constitution that we permit such words as spoken by the senator from Kentucky to be uttered here and now.

  But I ask the senator, what, save to send aid and comfort to the enemy, do these predictions of his amount to? Every word thus uttered falls as a note of inspiration upon every Confederate ear. Every sound thus spoken is a word—and from his lips a mighty word—of kindling and triumph to a foe that determines to advance….

  For me, amid temporary defeat, disaster, disgrace, it seems that my duty calls me to utter another word, and that word is “war.” Bold, sudden, forward, determined war, according to the laws of war, by armies and by military commanders clothed with full power, advancing with all the past glories of the Republic urging them on to conquest.

  I do not stop to consider whether it is “subjugation” or not. The senator animadverts to my use of “subjugation.” Why play on words? We propose to subjugate rebellion into loyalty; we propose to subjugate insurrection into peace; we propose to subjugate Confederate anarchy into constitutional Union liberty….

  And when we subjugate South Carolina, what will
we do? We shall compel its obedience to the Constitution of the United States; that is all. The senator knows that we propose no more. I yield for his reply.

  [BRECKINRIDGE:] By whose indulgence am I speaking? Not by any man’s indulgence, I am speaking by the guarantees of that Constitution which seems to be here now so little respected….

  When the senator asked what would have been done with a Roman senator who had uttered such words as mine, a certain senator on this floor,—whose courage has much risen of late, replied in audible tones, “He would have been hurled from the Tarpeian Rock.” Sir, if ever we find an American Tarpeian Rock, and a suitable victim is to be selected, the people will turn, not to me, but to that senator who has been the chief author of the public misfortunes.

  Let him remember, too, that while in ancient Rome the defenders of the public liberty were sometimes torn to pieces by the people, yet their memories were cherished in grateful remembrance; while to be hurled from the Tarpeian Rock was ever the fate of usurpers and tyrants…. I reply with just indignation at such an insult offered on the floor of the Senate Chamber to a senator who is speaking in his place….

  War is separation. War is disunion, eternal and final disunion. We have separation now; it is only made worse by war, and war will extinguish all those sentiments of common interest and feeling which might lead to a political reunion founded upon consent and upon a conviction of its advantages.

  Let this war go on, however, you will see further separation. Let this war go on, and the people of the West see the beautiful features of the old Confederacy beaten out of shape by the brutalizing hand of war, and they will turn aside in disgust from the sickening spectacle and become a separate nation.

  [BAKER:] The Pacific states will be true to the Union to the last of her blood and her treasure….

  I confess, Mr. President, that I would not have predicted three weeks ago the disasters which have overtaken our arms. But I ask the senator from Kentucky, will he tell me it is our duty to stay here, within fifteen miles of the enemy seeking to advance upon us every hour, and talk about nice questions of constitutional construction? Are we to stop and talk about rising sentiment against the war in the North? Are we to predict evil and flinch from what we predict? Is it not the manly part to go on as we have begun, to raise money, to levy armies, to prepare to advance?

  To talk to us about stopping is idle; we will never stop. Will the senator yield to rebellion? Will he shrink from armed insurrection? Will his state justify it? Shall we send a flag of truce? What would he have us do? Or would he conduct the war so feebly, that the whole world would smile at us in derision? What would he have us do? Those speeches of his, sown broadcast over the land, what clear distinct meaning have they? Are they not meant for disorganization in our very midst? Are they not intended to dull our weapons? Are they not intended to destroy our zeal? Are they not intended to animate our enemies? Sir—are they not words of brilliant, polished treason?

  [BRECKINRIDGE:] The senator asks me, “What would you have us do?” I have already indicated what I would have us do. I would have us stop the war.

  We can do it. There is none of that inexorable necessity to continue this war which the senator seems to suppose. I do not hold that constitutional liberty on this continent is bound up in this fratricidal, devastating, horrible contest. Upon the contrary, I fear it will find its grave in it….

  The senator is mistaken in supposing that we can reunite these states by war. He is mistaken in supposing that if twenty million on one side subjugate twelve million on the other side, that you can restore constitutional government as our fathers made it…. Sir, I would prefer to see these states all reunited upon true constitutional principles to any other object that could be offered me in life. But I infinitely prefer to see a peaceful separation of these states, than to see endless, aimless, devastating war, at the end of which I see the grave of public liberty and personal freedom.

  [BAKER:] The senator is right about the devastation ahead. There will be privation; there will be loss of luxury; there will be graves reeking with blood, watered with tears. When that is said, all is said. If we have the country, the whole country, the Union, the Constitution, free government—with these there will return all the blessings of a well-ordered civilization. The path of the whole country will be one of greatness and peace such as would have been ours today, if it had not been for the treason for which the senator from Kentucky too often seeks to apologize.

  [BRECKINRIDGE:] You say that the opinions I express are but brilliant treason. Mr. President, if I am speaking treason, I am not aware of it. I am speaking what I believe to be for the good of my country. If I am speaking treason, I am speaking it in my place in the Senate…. If my opinions do not reflect the judgment of the people I represent, I am not a man to cling to the emoluments of public life. If the commonwealth of Kentucky, instead of attempting to mediate as a neutral in this struggle, shall throw her energies into the strife on the side of what I believe to be a war of subjugation and annihilation, then she shall take her course. I am her son and will share her destiny, but she will be represented by some other man on the floor of this Senate.

  Henry Cabot Lodge Speaks on the League of Nations

  “Let us beware how we palter with our independence.”

  This speech, read on August 12, 1919, to the U. S. Senate during the “great debate” on postwar foreign policy, made the case against Woodrow Wilson’s campaign for the United States to join the League of Nations. Internationalists have long remembered this stand of the “irreconcilables” as the supreme example of misguided isolationism.

  Lodge was Senate majority leader and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee; he detested Wilson personally, but took a middle position on the League, which the U.S. president had proposed at the Versailles conference. He argued that the Senate should accept it with a key reservation: that the Congress had to remain central in any commitment as important as war.

  Lodge’s view, not Wilson’s, prevailed; the United States was not about to surrender that much of its sovereignty to a world body, and a policy of selective intervention with senatorial participation remained bipartisan doctrine throughout the twentieth century. His grandson, Massachusetts senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., an internationalist who later became our ambassador to the UN, in 1953 resolutely defended the much maligned Lodge reservation as one that “simply preserved the power of Congress—a power which is jealously guarded today, which is completely safeguarded both in the United Nations Charter and the Atlantic Pact, and which President Wilson was unwilling categorically to express at that time.”

  The essence of the speech is expressed in a single verb: “Let us beware how we palter with our independence.” “Palter,” perhaps rooted in a Germanic word for “rag,” means “deal frivolously”; it has a more solemn tone than “fiddle around.” The use of an archaic or unfamiliar word at a critical moment is rhetorically effective; Franklin Roosevelt used the same technique in referring to Pearl Harbor Day as one that would live in “infamy” rather than “history.” A defensive note is struck in Lodge’s speech by a speaker aware of the appeal of Wilsonian idealism and the bitter charges of isolation and selfishness being made against opponents of the League. Note how he closes with a serious, low-key effort to overcome Wilson’s “monopoly of idealism.”

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  I OBJECT IN the strongest possible way to having the United States agree, directly or indirectly, to be controlled by a league which may at any time, and perfectly lawfully and in accordance with the terms of the covenant, be drawn in to deal with internal conflicts in other countries, no matter what those conflicts may be. We should never permit the United States to be involved in any internal conflict in another country, except by the will of her people expressed through the Congress which represents them….

  Those of us, Mr. President, who are either wholly opposed to the League or who are trying to preserve the independence and the safety of the United States by changin
g the terms of the League, and who are endeavoring to make the League, if we are to be a member of it, less certain to promote war instead of peace have been reproached with selfishness in our outlook and with a desire to keep our country in a state of isolation. So far as the question of isolation goes, it is impossible to isolate the United States. I well remember the time, twenty years ago, when eminent senators and other distinguished gentlemen who were opposing the Philippines and shrieking about imperialism sneered at the statement made by some of us, that the United States had become a world power. I think no one now would question that the Spanish war marked the entrance of the United States into world affairs to a degree which had never obtained before. It was both an inevitable and an irrevocable step, and our entrance into the war with Germany certainly showed once and for all that the United States was not unmindful of its world responsibilities.

  We may set aside all this empty talk about isolation. Nobody expects to isolate the United States or to make it a hermit nation, which is a sheer absurdity. But there is a wide difference between taking a suitable part and bearing a due responsibility in world affairs and plunging the United States into every controversy and conflict on the face of the globe. By meddling in all the differences which may arise among any portion or fragment of humankind, we simply fritter away our influence and injure ourselves to no good purpose. We shall be of far more value to the world and its peace by occupying, so far as possible, the situation which we have occupied for the last twenty years and by adhering to the policy of Washington and Hamilton, of Jefferson and Monroe, under which we have risen to our present greatness and prosperity….

  It has been reiterated here on this floor, and reiterated to the point of weariness, that in every treaty there is some sacrifice of sovereignty. That is not a universal truth by any means, but it is true of some treaties and it is a platitude which does not require reiteration. The question and the only question before us here is how much of our sovereignty we are justified in sacrificing. In what I have already said about other nations putting us into war I have covered one point of sovereignty which ought never to be yielded—the power to send American soldiers and sailors everywhere, which ought never to be taken from the American people or impaired in the slightest degree. Let us beware how we palter with our independence….