Book of Great American Speeches for Young People

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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

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Acknowledgments

t has been my great pleasure in compiling this collection to Iwork 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 Arling- ton, 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. M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page iv

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 M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page v

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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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” M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page vii

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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?” M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page viii

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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” M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page ix

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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” M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page x

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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” M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page xi

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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 M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page xii

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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 M/S FM 4/16/01 3:54 PM Page 1

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 A 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 Vir- ginia 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.

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2 Great American Speeches for Young People

Oratory such as that of Patrick Henry or Frederick Dou- glass 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 Mar- tin 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 Birming- ham, Alabama, church.