Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  Sir, in supporting the motion of my honorable friend, I am, I firmly believe, supporting the honor and the interests of the Christian religion. I should think that I insulted that religion if I said that it cannot stand unaided by intolerant laws. Without such laws, it was established, and without such laws it may be maintained. It triumphed over the superstitions of the most refined and of the most savage nations, over the graceful mythology of Greece and the bloody idolatry of the northern forests. It prevailed over the power and policy of the Roman empire. It tamed the barbarians by whom that empire was overthrown. But all these victories were gained not by the help of intolerance, but in spite of the opposition of intolerance. The whole history of Christianity proves that she has little indeed to fear from persecution as a foe, but much to fear from persecution as an ally. May she long continue to bless our country with her benignant influence, strong in her sublime philosophy, strong in her spotless morality, strong in those internal and external evidences to which the most powerful and comprehensive of human intellects have yielded assent, the last solace of those who have outlived every earthly hope, the last restraint of those who are raised above every earthly fear! But let not us, mistaking her character and her interests, fight the battle of truth with the weapons of error, and endeavor to support by oppression that religion which first taught the human race the great lesson of universal charity.

  William Cobbett Heaps Scorn on Opponents of His Bill to Reduce Child Labor

  “Three hundred thousand little girls, from whose labor, if we only deduct two hours a day, away goes the wealth, away goes the capital, away go the resources, the power, and the glory of England!”

  Cobbett, who used the pseudonym Peter Porcupine, was the first media giant. He attacked the army establishment in England and was driven to America to escape prosecution; in Philadelphia, he supported the despised King George III and was hit with the largest libel judgment yet levied in America; returning to England, he turned on the government there and was jailed for libel. Yet, wherever Cobbett wrote, his iconoclastic prose was widely read by commoners, and his vigorous diatribes and denunciations marshaled the force of public opinion as never before. Essayist William Hazlitt marveled at Cobbett’s patriotism of contrariety and coined a phrase that has been applied to journalism ever since: “One has no notion of him as making use of a fine pen, but a great mutton-fist; his style stuns his readers…. He is a kind of fourth estate in the politics of the country.”

  The lifelong agitator was elected to Parliament in 1833, and he covered his own speeches in his Political Register. One bill he supported was to reduce the long hours of girls under eighteen working in factories; he recounted the triumph of the mill owners in his reform journal:

  “The debate was closing at half-after twelve; and the main argument of the opponents was that if two hours’ labor from these children, under eighteen years of age, were taken off, the consequences, on a national scale, might be ‘truly dreadful’! It might, and would, destroy manufacturing capital; prevent us from carrying on competition with foreign manufacturers; reduce mills to a small part of their present value; and break up, as it were, the wealth and power of the country; render it comparatively feeble; and expose it to be an easy prey to foreign nations. What I said, was that which here follows, as near as I can recollect, word for word.”

  ***

  SIR, I WILL make but one single observation upon this subject; and that is this: that this “reformed” House has, this night, made a discovery greater than all the discoveries that all former Houses of Commons have ever made, even if all their discoveries could have been put into one. Heretofore, we have sometimes been told that our ships, our mercantile traffic with foreign nations by the means of those ships, together with our body of rich merchants; we have sometimes been told that these form the source of our wealth, power, and security, At other times, the land has stepped forward, and bid us look to it, and its yeomanry, as the sure and solid foundation of our greatness and our safety, At other times, the bank has pushed forward with her claims, and has told us that great as the others were, they were nothing without “public credit,” upon which not only the prosperity and happiness but the very independence of the country depended. But, sir, we have this night discovered that the shipping, the land, and the bank and its credit are all nothing worth compared with the labor of three hundred thousand little girls in Lancashire! Aye, when compared with only an eighth part of the labor of those three hundred thousand little girls, from whose labor, if we only deduct two hours a day, away goes the wealth, away goes the capital, away go the resources, the power, and the glory of England! With what pride and what pleasure, sir, will the right honorable gentleman opposite and the honorable member for Manchester behind me go northward with the news of this discovery, and communicate it to that large portion of the little girls whom they have the honor and the happiness to represent!

  Senator Henry Clay Calls for the Great Compromise to Avert Civil War

  “And now let us discard… all hankerings after the gilded crumbs which fall from the table of power.”

  In 1849, as the North demanded the exclusion of slavery from the new territories in the West, and as the South explored the notion of secession to protect its slavery-based cotton economy, a senator from Kentucky tried to work out “a measure of mutual sacrifice.” Senator Henry Clay had earned the sobriquet of the Great Compromiser nearly thirty years before, with his Missouri Compromise, dividing new states and lands between slave and free. His last settlement included the admission of California as a free state, which the North wanted, and the rigorous application of a fugitive slave law, which southerners called for; with the support of Daniel Webster and Stephen Douglas, Henry Clay succeeded in delaying the onset of the Civil War for a decade.

  Clay’s oratory was closely studied by Lincoln, who saw how Dutch dialect words like “hankering” could be used in formal addresses. Clay also looked to America’s moral leadership by example: “What will be the judgment of mankind?” was a theme picked up by a generation of politicians who followed him. In this selection from an 1850 speech introducing a Senate resolution, the Whig who could command national leadership—but never achieve the presidency—deals with the idea of compromise and the danger of its failure.

  ***

  IT HAS BEEN objected against this measure that it is a compromise. It has been said that it is a compromise of principle, or of a principle. Mr. President, what is a compromise? It is a work of mutual concession—an agreement in which there are reciprocal stipulations—a work in which, for the sake of peace and concord, one party abates his extreme demands in consideration of an abatement of extreme demands by the other party: it is a measure of mutual concession—a measure of mutual sacrifice. Undoubtedly, Mr. President, in all such measures of compromise, one party would be very glad to get what he wants, and reject what he does not desire but which the other party wants. But when he comes to reflect that, from the nature of the government and its operations, and from those with whom he is dealing, it is necessary upon his part, in order to secure what he wants, to grant something to the other side, he should be reconciled to the concession which he has made in consequence of the concession which he is to receive, if there is no great principle involved, such as a violation of the Constitution of the United States. I admit that such a compromise as that ought never to be sanctioned or adopted. But I now call upon any senator in his place to point out from the beginning to the end, from California to New Mexico, a solitary provision in this bill which is violative of the Constitution of the United States.

  The responsibility of this great measure passes from the hands of the committee, and from my hands. They know, and I know, that it is an awful and tremendous responsibility. I hope that you will meet it with a just conception and a true appreciation of its magnitude, and the magnitude of the consequences that may ensue from your decision one way or the other. The alternatives, I fear, which the measure presents are concord and increased discord—a
servile civil war, originating in its causes on the lower Rio Grande and terminating possibly in its consequences on the upper Rio Grande in the Santa Fe country, or the restoration of harmony and fraternal kindness. I believe from the bottom of my soul that the measure is the reunion of this Union. I believe it is the dove of peace, which, taking its aerial flight from the dome of the Capitol, carries the glad tidings of assured peace and restored harmony to all the remotest extremities of this distracted land. I believe that it will be attended with all these beneficent effects. And now let us discard all resentment, all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of place, all hankerings after the gilded crumbs which fall from the table of power. Let us forget popular fears, from whatever quarter they may spring. Let us go to the limpid fountain of unadulterated patriotism and, performing a solemn lustration, return divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think alone of our God, our country, our consciences, and our glorious Union—that Union without which we shall be tom into hostile fragments, and sooner or later become the victims of military despotism or foreign domination.

  Mr. President, what is an individual man? An atom, almost invisible without a magnifying glass—a mere speck upon the surface of the immense universe; not a second in time, compared to immeasurable, never-beginning, and never-ending eternity; a drop of water in the great deep, which evaporates and is borne off by the winds; a grain of sand, which is soon gathered to the dust from which it sprung. Shall a being so small, so petty, so fleeting, so evanescent, oppose itself to the onward march of a great nation which is to subsist for ages and ages to come—oppose itself to that long line of posterity which, issuing from our loins, will endure during the existence of the world? Forbid it, God.

  Let us look to our country and our cause, elevate ourselves to the dignity of pure and disinterested patriots, and save our country from all impending dangers. What if, in the march of this nation to greatness and power, we should be buried beneath the wheels that propel it onward! What are we—what is any man—worth who is not ready and willing to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his country when it is necessary?

  I call upon all the South. Sir, we have had hard words, bitter words, bitter thoughts, unpleasant feelings toward each other in the progress of this great measure. Let us forget them. Let us sacrifice these feelings. Let us go to the altar of our country and swear, as the oath was taken of old, that we will stand by her; that we will support her; that we will uphold her Constitution; that we will preserve her Union; and that we will pass this great, comprehensive, and healing system of measures, which will hush all the jarring elements and bring peace and tranquillity to our homes.

  Let me, Mr. President, in conclusion, say that the most disastrous consequences would occur, in my opinion, were we to go home, doing nothing to satisfy and tranquilize the country upon these great questions. What will be the judgment of mankind, what the judgment of that portion of mankind who are looking upon the progress of this scheme of self-government as being that which holds the highest hopes and expectations of ameliorating the condition of mankind—what will their judgment be? Will not all the monarchs of the Old World pronounce our glorious Republic a disgraceful failure? Will you go home and leave all in disorder and confusion—all unsettled—all open?

  The contentions and agitations of the past will be increased and augmented by the agitations resulting from our neglect to decide them. Sir, we shall stand condemned by all human judgment below, and of that above it is not for me to speak. We shall stand condemned in our own consciences, by our own constituents, and by our own country. The measure may be defeated. I have been aware that its passage for many days was not absolutely certain. From the first to the last, I hoped and believed it would pass, because from the first to the last I believed it was founded on the principles of just and righteous concession, of mutual conciliation. I believe that it deals unjustly by no part of the Republic; that it saves their honor and, as far as it is dependent upon Congress, saves the interests of all quarters of the country. But, sir, I have known that the decision of its fate depended upon four or five votes in the Senate of the United States, whose ultimate judgment we could not count upon the one side or the other with absolute certainty. Its fate is now committed to the Senate, and to those five or six votes to which I have referred. It may be defeated. It is possible that, for the chastisement of our sins and transgressions, the rod of Providence may be still applied to us, may be still suspended over us. But, if defeated, it will be a triumph of ultraism and impracticability—a triumph of a most extraordinary conjunction of extremes; a victory won by abolitionism; a victory achieved by free-soilism; a victory of discord and agitation over peace and tranquility; and I pray to Almighty God that it may not, in consequence of the inauspicious result, lead to the most unhappy and disastrous consequences to our beloved country.

  Karl Marx Calls for the Dictatorship of the Proletariat

  “Although the atmosphere in which we live weighs upon everyone with a twenty-thousand-pound force, do you feel it?”

  As revolutionist and German social philosopher, Karl Heinrich Marx rejected idealism in favor of materialism, seeking to uplift the working class through demands for extreme social reform. His radical views caused him to spend much of his life in exile; he was living in Belgium in 1848 when he published The Communist Manifesto, written with Friedrich Engels, with its ominous opening, “A specter is haunting Europe—the specter of communism,” and its ringing conclusion, “Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.” By 1849, he had settled permanently in London. From there, during the American Civil War, he contributed a column to Horace Greeley’s New York Tribune.

  The essence of his original philosophic idea was that economics determined politics, that public rather than private ownership of the means of production was the best economics, and that “class struggle” was inevitable when the class in charge was no longer benefiting the mass of the people. Though his central prediction of the collapse of capitalism was mistaken, and tens of millions suffered and died as a result of the application of his philosophy, the idea of class struggle had validity: after the “new class” of Communist apparatchiks took control of the economy of the Soviet empire, the lower class felt the unrelenting pinch of permanent depression as well as political oppression and swept out its class enemy.

  When the founding of the People’s Paper was celebrated with a London banquet in 1856, Karl Marx was asked to speak. Invited to give the first toast, he knew that he was “to speak for the sovereignty of the proletariat in all countries.”

  Throughout this after-dinner speech, Marx sounds themes familiar to his social thought: the needed revolution of workingmen for “the emancipation of their own class,” the universal domination of “capital rule and wages slavery,” and the historical imperative for the inevitable success of the proletariat. That imperative is made most forceful in the parallel structure of the speech’s closing sentence.

  ***

  THE SO-CALLED revolutions of 1848 were but poor incidents—small fractures and fissures in the dry crust of European society. However, they announced the abyss.

  Beneath the apparently solid surface, they betrayed oceans of liquid matter, only needing expansion to rend into fragments continents of hard rock. Noisedly and confusedly they proclaimed the emancipation of the proletarian, i.e., the secret of the nineteenth century, and of the revolution of that century.

  That social revolution, it is true, was no novelty invented in 1848. Steam, electricity, and the self-acting mule were revolutionists of a rather more dangerous character than even citizens Barbès, Raspail, and Blanqui. But, although the atmosphere in which we live weighs upon everyone with a twenty-thousand-pound force, do you feel it? No more than European society before 1848 felt the revolutionary atmosphere enveloping and pressing it from all sides.