Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  These great national problems are not for your professional participation or military solution. Your guidepost stands out like a tenfold beacon in the night: duty, honor, country.

  You are the lever which binds together the entire fabric of our national system of defense. From your ranks come the great captains who hold the nation’s destiny in their hands the moment the war tocsin sounds.

  The long gray line has never failed us. Were you to do so, a million ghosts in olive drab, in brown khaki, in blue and gray, would rise from their white crosses, thundering those magic words: duty, honor, country.

  This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

  The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished—tone and tints. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen, then, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.

  In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: duty, honor, country.

  Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the corps, and the corps, and the corps.

  I bid you farewell.

  II

  WAR AND REVOLUTION SPEECHES

  Catiline the Conspirator Turns and Fights

  “Those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to a rampart.”

  Catiline is a name synonymous with conspiracy. The Roman politician and general plotted, schemed, and maneuvered to take power from consul Cicero, who—using facts gained from Catiline’s mistress—defamed him before the Senate (the first of Cicero’s famous orations against Catiline is on p. 257). Catiline took those of his followers who escaped execution and raced for Gaul, but was cornered at Pistoria, more than two hundred miles north of Rome. He had the choice of fighting and dying or surrendering and dying. In January of 62 B.C., he spoke to his band of sure losers in a way that informed his doomed conspiracy with a nobility in the face of defeat. He was killed in the battle that followed.

  The words are those of historian Sallust, who reconstructed the speech from what Catiline was reported to have said, much as a later historian did with Patrick Henry’s oration. The opening paragraph, pure flattery, is quite untrue, but offers the sort of compliment an audience facing death likes to receive; the observation, near the close, that necessity “makes even cowards brave” is painfully true.

  ***

  I AM WELL aware, soldiers, that words cannot inspire courage and that a spiritless army cannot be rendered active, or a timid army valiant, by the speech of its commander. Whatever courage is in the heart of a man, whether from nature or from habit, so much will be shown by him in the field; and on him whom neither glory nor danger can move, exhortation is bestowed in vain, for the terror in his breast stops his ears.

  I have called you together, however, to give you a few instructions, and to explain to you, at the same time, my reasons for the course which I have adopted. You all know, soldiers, how severe a penalty the inactivity and cowardice of Lentulus has brought upon himself and us; and how, while waiting for reinforcements from the city, I was unable to march into Gaul. In what situation our affairs now are, you all understand as well as myself. Two armies of the enemy, one on the side of Rome, and the other on that of Gaul, oppose our progress; while the want of corn, and of other necessaries, prevents us from remaining, however strongly we may desire to remain, in our present position. Whithersoever we would go, we must open a passage with our swords.

  I conjure you, therefore, to maintain a brave and resolute spirit and to remember, when you advance to battle, that on your own right hands depend riches, honor, and glory, with the enjoyment of your liberty and of your country. If we conquer, all will be safe; we shall have provisions in abundance, and the colonies and corporate towns will open their gates to us. But if we lose the victory through want of courage, those same places will turn against us, for neither place nor friend will protect him whom his arms have not protected. Besides, soldiers, the same exigency does not press upon our adversaries as presses upon us; we fight for our country, for our liberty, for our life; they contend for what but little concerns them, the power of a small party. Attack them, therefore, with so much the greater confidence, and call to mind your achievements of old.

  We might, with the utmost ignominy, have passed the rest of our days in exile. Some of you, after losing your property, might have waited at Rome for assistance from others. But because such a life, to men of spirit, was disgusting and unendurable, you resolved upon your present course. If you wish to quit it, you must exert all your resolution, for none but conquerors have exchanged war for peace. To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle, those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to a rampart.

  When I contemplate you, soldiers, and when I consider your past exploits, a strong hope of victory animates me. Your spirit, your age, your valor, give me confidence—to say nothing of necessity, which makes even cowards brave. To prevent the numbers of the enemy from surrounding us, our confined situation is sufficient. But should fortune be unjust to your valor, take care not to lose your lives unavenged; take care not to be taken and butchered like cattle, rather than fighting like men, to leave to your enemies a bloody and mournful victory.

  Pope Urban II Launches the First Crusade

  “Dieu li volt—God wills it!”

  Elected Pope in 1088, Urban waited three years until the antipope was ejected before entering Rome. Europe was a maelstrom of warring feudal barons, lawless nobles, and Norman buccaneers. The new pope came up with the way to channel their energies into what he thought would be both diverting and constructive: the recovery of the Holy Land, which was then in the hands of unbelievers. He proposed to start a war—a holy war, or crusade—to tame the threatening Turks on their home ground, to open the Eastern Mediterranean to Italian commerce, and to make possible the adventurous penitentiary pilgrimages that would recruit new adherents to the Church.

  At Clermont in November 1095, to an audience of thousands who had pitched their tents in open fields, the French pope stood on a platform to deliver what historian Will Durant called “the most influential speech in medieval history.” He summoned Christendom to a crusade, sanctified by God, against the common enemy. He promised them that their families and property would be protected while they were on the crusade, and if they died for God’s glory, all their sins would be remitted and Heaven would await their souls. “God wills it!” he shouted in Latin, and the crowd roared back, “God wills it!”

  What was willed by Urban II turned out to be a slaughter. After the first wave of twenty thousand disorganized rabble failed, the nobles took over and defeated the Turks at Antioch, driving across Asia Minor to lay siege to Jerusalem, demanding unconditional surrender. After forty days, the small Muslim force gave in. An eyewitness priest, Raymond of Agiles, wrote delightedly, “Wonderful things were to be seen. Numbers of the Saracens were beheaded… or forced to jump from the towers; others were tortured for several days and then burned… one rode about everywhere amid the corpses of men and horses.” All seventy thousand Muslim residents of Jerusalem were butchered; Jews were herded into their synagogue and burned alive.

  The first of the nine crusades that would turn Asia Minor into a field of blood and death over two centuries had begun. The nation
al monarchies of Europe were unified and strengthened, the ports of Italy prospered, the native Christians were oppressed by the European rulers, and the seeds of religious hatred were firmly planted.

  ***

  O RACE OF Franks! race beloved and chosen by God!…

  From the confines of Jerusalem and from Constantinople a grievous report has gone forth that an accursed race, wholly alienated from God, has violently invaded the lands of these Christians, and has depopulated them by pillage and fire. They have led away a part of the captives into their own country, and a part they have killed by cruel tortures. They destroy the altars, after having defiled them with their uncleanliness. The kingdom of the Greeks is now dismembered by them, and has been deprived of territory so vast in extent that it could not be traversed in two months’ time.

  On whom, then, rests the labor of avenging these wrongs, and of recovering this territory, if not upon you—you upon whom, above all others, God has conferred remarkable glory in arms, great bravery, and strength to humble the heads of those who resist you? Let the deeds of your ancestors encourage you—the glory and grandeur of Charlemagne and your other monarchs. Let the Holy Sepulcher of Our Lord and Saviour, now held by unclean nations, arouse you, and the holy places that are now stained with pollution…. Let none of your possessions keep you back, nor anxiety for your family affairs. For this land which you now inhabit, shut in on all sides by the sea and the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; it scarcely furnishes food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder and devour one another, that you wage wars, and that many among you perish in civil strife.

  Let hatred, therefore, depart from among you; let your quarrels end. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulcher; wrest that land from a wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. Jerusalem is a land fruitful above all others, a paradise of delights. That royal city, situated at the center of the earth, implores you to come to her aid. Undertake this journey eagerly for the remission of your sins, and be assured of the reward of imperishable glory in the Kingdom of Heaven.

  Dieu li volt—“God wills it!”

  Queen Elizabeth Inveighs against the Spanish Armada

  “I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king….”

  Vain, miserly, and fickle, the spinster queen commanded the affection of her subjects by virtue of her courage and her identification with the nation’s fate. One of her many rejected suitors, Philip II of Spain, in 1588 assembled what was called the “Invincible Armada” of tall ships to invade England, thereby to assert Catholic power against the center of Protestantism. Elizabeth I, despite the danger of a cross-Channel invasion, went with a small army to visit the troops in Tilbury. Her ostentatious unconcern for personal security while in the midst of the English people was expressed in a strong “Let tyrants fear”; as her soldiers knelt, she affirmed her faith in a “famous victory.”

  ***

  MY LOVING PEOPLE, we have been persuaded by some, that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you, I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear; I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

  Patrick Henry Ignites the American Revolution

  “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!”

  On March 23, 1775—the same day that Edmund Burke was urging conciliation with America in London’s House of Commons—a thirty-eight-year-old self-taught lawyer named Patrick Henry rose in St. John’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, where 122 of the colony’s delegates were meeting. The church’s windows were open on the fine spring day to let a crowd gather outside listen to the deliberations of the British colony’s representatives. Henry handed a series of resolutions to the clerk, who read them out, concluding, “Resolved therefore, That this Colony be immediately put into a posture of defence; and that [blank] be a Committee to prepare a plan for the embodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that purpose.” As the proposer, Henry would have been the first called upon to speak for his resolutions, although the initial lines of his reported speech refer graciously to colleagues who differed with him; perhaps he alluded to what they had said the day before.

  He spoke without notes; at least, none have ever been found. His speech began in a quiet smolder and ended ablaze with passion. A Baptist clergyman present wrote of the orator’s crescendo, “The tendons of his neck stood out white and rigid, like whipcords. His voice rose louder and louder, until the walls of the building and all within them seemed to shake and rock in its tremendous vibrations. Finally his pale face and glaring eyes became terrible to look upon. Men leaned forward in their seats with the heads strained forward, their faces pale and their eyes glaring like the speaker’s…. When he sat down, I felt sick with excitement.” No applause; no known reply; Richard Henry Lee seconded the resolutions; Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Nelson were reported to have spoken in favor. The vote was called for and taken; the resolutions carried by a narrow margin of five, and the American Revolution in the largest colony was under way.

  With “This is no time for ceremony,” the speaker goes right to the heart of the matter: “freedom or slavery.” His rhetorical approach is one of loaded question and scathing reply. Q.: “Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation?” A.: “These are the implements of war and subjugation….” Q.: “Shall we try argument?” A.: “Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years.”

  The past pleas to the crown are listed in an active parallel construction: “We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated….” The answers are recounted in parallel also, but in the passive, leaving George III out of it: “Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded….”

  When Henry says, “An appeal to arms and the God of Hosts is all that is left us,” on top of his earlier refusal to commit “an act of disloyalty towards the majesty of heaven,” he is directly referring to a euphemism put forward a century before: English philosopher John Locke, in advancing the courageous idea that man had natural, God-given rights, was presuming to say that these superseded the divine right of kings, but—to save his life—couched his justification for revolution to unseat an unjust monarch in the phrase “an appeal to heaven.” This idea under-girded the philosophy Jefferson expressed later in the Declaration of Independence, and the religious image was used by the fiery Henry in calling for what he never named: revolution.

  He then knocks down the arguments used against the revolutionaries. “They tell us, sir, that we are weak….” He a
nswers that time is not on the colonists’ side, that the king will grow stronger, but that “the battle… is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave.” The men gathered in the church could fairly hear echoes of Ecclesiastes 9:11: “The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong….” And then he adds the crusher: there is no real choice when the alternatives are fighting for liberty or submission to slavery. “The war is inevitable,” he concludes, but not in despair, “—and let it come!”

  In the peroration, he flays his audience with rhetorical questions, three short and then one long, setting up his answer choosing death rather than slavery. Note the breath, or beat, provided by “I know not what course others may take”; it enables the orator to deliver the punch line with such added force that it echoes down through history.

  One small question: Is this what Patrick Henry really said? We know he spoke that day; we know he made a powerful impact with his speech; but we do not know if the speech that has come down to us is the speech he gave. No notes; no manuscript then or later; no contemporaneous account. The first publication of the speech, in 1816, came forty-one years after the Richmond convention, taken from William Wirt’s then forthcoming biography of Patrick Henry, who died in 1799. Evidence that the final line was accurate comes from the slogan on the flag of the militia that subsequently served under him: “Liberty or Death.” (One rebel wag noted he preferred a less severe “Liberty or Be Crippled.”)