Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History

by Unknown

  And here, sir, recurring to this map, I find in the immediate vicinity of the Piegans “vast herds of buffalo” and “immense fields of rich wheat lands.”

  [Here the hammer fell. Many cries: “Go on! Go on!”

  The Speaker: Is there objection to the gentleman of Kentucky continuing his remarks? The chair hears none, the gentleman will proceed.]

  I was remarking, sir, upon these vast “wheat fields” represented on this map in the immediate neighborhood of the buffaloes and the Piegans, and was about to say that the idea of there being these immense wheat fields in the very heart of a wilderness, hundreds and hundreds of miles beyond the utmost verge of civilization, may appear to some gentlemen as rather incongruous, as rather too great a strain on the “blankets” of veracity. But to my mind there is no difficulty in the matter whatever. The phenomenon is very easily accounted for. It is evident, sir, that the Piegans sowed that wheat there and plowed it with buffalo bulls. Now, sir, this fortunate combination of buffaloes and Piegans, considering their relative positions to each other and to Duluth, as they are arranged on this map, satisfies me that Duluth is destined to be the beef market of the world.

  Here, you will observe, are the buffaloes, directly between the Piegans and Duluth; and here, right on the road to Duluth, are the Creeks. Now, sir, when the buffaloes are sufficiently fat from grazing on these immense wheat fields, you see it will be the easiest thing in the world for the Piegans to drive them on down, stay all night with their friends the Creeks, and go into Duluth in the morning. I think I see them now, sir, a vast herd of buffaloes, with their heads down, their eyes glaring, their nostrils dilated, their tongues out, and their tails curled over their backs, tearing along toward Duluth, with about a thousand Piegans on their grass-bellied ponies, yelling at their heels! On they come! And as they sweep past the Creeks they join in the chase, and away they all go, yelling, bellowing, ripping, and tearing along, amid clouds of dust, until the last buffalo is safely penned in the stockyards of Duluth!

  Sir, I might stand here for hours and hours, and expatiate with rapture upon the gorgeous prospects of Duluth, as depicted upon this map. But human life is too short and the time of this House far too valuable to allow me to linger longer upon the delightful theme. I think every gentleman on this floor is as well satisfied as I am that Duluth is destined to become the commercial metropolis of the universe, and that this road should be built at once. I am fully persuaded that no patriotic representative of the American people who has a proper appreciation of the associated glories of Duluth and the St. Croix will hesitate a moment to say that every able-bodied female in the land between the ages of eighteen and forty-five who is in favor of “women’s rights” should be drafted and set to work upon this great work without delay. Nevertheless, sir, it grieves my very soul to be compelled to say that I cannot vote for the grant of lands provided for in this bill.

  Ah, sir, you can have no conception of the poignancy of my anguish that I am deprived of that blessed privilege! There are two insuperable obstacles in the way. In the first place, my constituents, for whom I am acting here, have no more interest in this road than they have in the great question of culinary taste now perhaps agitating the public mind of Dominica, as to whether the illustrious commissioners who recently left this capital for that free and enlightened republic would be better fricasseed, boiled, or roasted, and in the second place these lands, which I am asked to give away, alas, are not mine to bestow! My relation to them is simply that of trustee to an express trust. And shall I ever betray that trust? Never, sir! Rather perish Duluth! Perish the paragon of cities! Rather let the freezing cyclones of the bleak Northwest bury it forever beneath the eddying sands of the raging St. Croix!

  British Conservative Benjamin Disraeli Speaks Up for Tory Principles

  “I express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of England was so great and her resources so vast and inexhaustible.”

  When Benjamin Disraeli first won a seat in Parliament, in 1837, the same year that Victoria ascended to the throne, his maiden speech was a personal and political disaster. His flowery language and affected style of dress caused him to be laughed off the floor of the House of Commons.

  A dozen years later, however, Disraeli had become recognized as the leader of the House’s Conservative party, and his skillful use of language allowed him to achieve success not only as a novelist but also as a persuasive statesman. With the rising fortunes of the Conservative party against Gladstone’s liberalism, Disraeli eventually served as prime minister, securing the Suez Canal for England and adding “empress of India” to the titles of Queen Victoria, who made him earl of Beaconsfield.

  On April 3, 1872, Disraeli—who had once said, “Damn principle! Stick to your party”—delivered his forceful speech outlining the principles of the Conservative party. That speech, in Manchester, pared here from its original length of more than three hours, aligns the Conservative party’s cause with the English Constitution and attacks the Liberal party, if not Prime Minister Gladstone himself. In a striking metaphor, Disraeli describes the ministers on the treasury bench in the House of Commons as “a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous.” By 1874, Disraeli had again become prime minister.

  ***

  …THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY are accused of having no program of policy. If by a program is meant a plan to despoil churches and plunder landlords, I admit we have no program. If by a program is meant a policy which assails or menaces every institution and every interest, every class and every calling in the country, I admit we have no program. But if to have a policy with distinct ends, and these such as most deeply interest the great body of the nation, be a becoming program for a political party, then I contend we have an adequate program, and one which, here or elsewhere, I shall always be prepared to assert and to vindicate.

  Gentlemen, the program of the Conservative party is to maintain the Constitution of the country. I have not come down to Manchester to deliver an essay on the English Constitution; but when the banner of republicanism is unfurled—when the fundamental principles of our institutions are controverted—I think, perhaps, it may not be inconvenient that I should make some few practical remarks upon the character of our Constitution—upon that monarchy limited by the coordinate authority of the estates of the realm, which, under the title of Queen, Lords, and Commons, has contributed so greatly to the prosperity of this country, and with the maintenance of which I believe that prosperity is bound up.

  Gentlemen, since the settlement of that Constitution, now nearly two centuries ago, England has never experienced a revolution, though there is no country in which there has been so continuous and such considerable change. How is this? Because the wisdom of your forefathers placed the prize of supreme power without the sphere of human passions. Whatever the struggle of parties, whatever the strife of factions, whatever the excitement and exaltation of the public mind, there has always been something in this country round which all classes and parties could rally, representing the majesty of the law, the administration of justice. and involving, at the same time, the security for every man’s rights and the fountain of honor. Now, gentlemen, it is well clearly to comprehend what is meant by a country not having a revolution for two centuries. It means, for that space, the unbroken exercise and enjoyment of the ingenuity of man. It means for that space the continuous application of the discoveries of science to his comfort and convenience. It means the accumulation of capital, the elevation of labor, the establishment of those admirable factories which cover your district; the unwearied improvement of the cultivation of the land, which has extracted from a somewhat churlish soil harvests more exuberant than those furnished by lands nearer to the sun. It means the continuous order which is the only parent of personal liberty and political right. And you owe all these, gentlemen, to the throne….

  The first consideration of a mini
ster should be the health of the people. A land may be covered with historic trophies, with museums of science and galleries of art, with universities, and with libraries; the people may be civilized and ingenious; the country may be even famous in the annals and action of the world, but, gentlemen, if the population every ten years decreases, and the stature of the race every ten years diminishes, the history of that country will soon be the history of the past….

  I doubt not there is in this hall more than one publican who remembers that last year an act of Parliament was introduced to denounce him as a “sinner.” I doubt not there are in this hall a widow and an orphan who remember the profligate proposition to plunder their lonely heritage. But, gentlemen, as time advanced it was not difficult to perceive that extravagance was being substituted for energy by the government. The unnatural stimulus was subsiding. Their paroxysms ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alternated between a menace and a sigh. As I sat opposite the treasury bench, the ministers reminded me of one of those marine landscapes not very unusual on the coast of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes. Not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest. But the situation is still dangerous. There are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumbling of the sea….

  Gentlemen, don’t suppose, because I counsel firmness and decision at the right moment, that I am of that school of statesmen who are favorable to a turbulent and aggressive diplomacy. I have resisted it during a great part of my life. I am not unaware that the relations of England to Europe have undergone a vast change during the century that has just elapsed.

  The relations of England to Europe are not the same as they were in the days of Lord Chatham or Frederick the Great. The queen of England has become the sovereign of the most powerful of Oriental states. On the other side of the globe there are now establishments belonging to her, teeming with wealth and population, which will, in due time, exercise their influence over the distribution of power. The old establishments of this country, now the United States of America, throw their lengthening shades over the Atlantic, which mix with European waters. These are vast and novel elements in the distribution of power. I acknowledge that the policy of England with respect to Europe should be a policy of reserve, but proud reserve; and in answer to those statesmen—those mistaken statesmen who have intimated the decay of the power of England and the decline of its resources—I express here my confident conviction that there never was a moment in our history when the power of England was so great and her resources so vast and inexhaustible.

  And yet, gentlemen, it is not merely our fleets and armies, our powerful artillery, our accumulated capital, and our unlimited credit on which I so much depend, as upon that unbroken spirit of her people, which I believe was never prouder of the imperial country to which they belong. Gentlemen, it is to that spirit that I above all things trust. I look upon the people of Lancashire as fairly representative of the people of England. I think the manner in which they have invited me here, locally a stranger, to receive the expression of their cordial sympathy, and only because they recognize some effort on my part to maintain the greatness of their country, is evidence of the spirit of the land. I must express to you again my deep sense of the generous manner in which you have welcomed me, and in which you have permitted me to express to you my views upon public affairs. Proud of your confidence, and encouraged by your sympathy, I now deliver to you, as my last words, the cause of the Tory party, of the English Constitution, and of the British Empire.

  Kalakaua, Last King of Hawaii, Assumes the Throne

  “Then let my motto be ‘The man and woman who shall live correctly and bring forth children, they are my people.’”

  When the previous king died without an heir to the throne of Hawaii, David Kalakaua, over the strong objection of a more popular candidate, Dowager Queen Emma, was chosen to succeed him; American and British warships put down the subsequent rioting. On April 13, 1874, he spoke at the capital city of Lahaina, and “His Majesty’s Address to the People of Lahaina” served to announce the policies of this new king.

  The Hawaiian Islands had both prospered and suffered during the first half of the nineteenth century. A financial boom of European and American trade followed Captain James Cook’s 1778 discovery of the islands, but along with the trade came infectious diseases and the replacement of much native tradition by Western culture.

  The king’s address sought to unify his people through the common purposes of increasing commerce and repopulating the islands. His allusions to Hawaiian history point back to 1810, when Kamehameha I became the sole ruler of the islands and brought peace to the area. Kalakaua’s analogy of restoring a dilapidated house leads into specific statements of his intended policy, particularly the critical need for strengthening the family unit and increasing the native population of Hawaii.

  ***

  PEOPLE OF LAHAINA, before addressing to you the brief remarks which I propose to make on this occasion, I cannot omit referring to some memories of my late lamented predecessor, who made a short visit here last year, on the journey which he undertook for the benefit of his health. The late king was deeply solicitous for the welfare of his people, but the condition of his health was such that he was unable to carry out his plans for their good. I regarded the late king and his two immediate predecessors with strong affection, for on these sands and among these fields of Lahaina, they and I have played together as boys, in the family of our grandmother, Hoapili Wahine. The recollections of those days long past come before me vividly now.

  And now I have come hither to see you, as my children, and that you may look upon me as your father. I thank you very much, people of the district of Lahaina, for the very warm and loyal reception which you have given us, one which neither myself, the queen, nor the members of the royal family can cease to remember with pleasure.

  The principal object which I have had in view in making this journey among my people, is that we may all be incited to renewed exertions for the advancement and prosperity of our nation, the extinction of which has been prophesied.

  Figures of the census have been published to show that we are a dying race. But shall we sit still, and indolently see the structure created by our fathers fall to pieces without lifting a hand to stay the work of destruction? If the house is dilapidated, let us repair it. Let us thoroughly renovate our own selves, to the end that, causes of decay being removed, the nation may grow again with new life and vigor, and our government may be firmly established—that structure which our fathers erected.

  There are some of the old folks remaining and here present, the people of the time of Kamehameha I, who heard that celebrated saying “The old men, the old women, and the children may sleep by the wayside without fear.” That motto remains good to this day. Kamehameha II broke the taboo on social intercourse—his word was O ka ainoa. Said Kamehameha III, “The righteous man is my man,” and this sentiment prevails today among us, both foreigners and natives. I believe that if I shall make the main object of my reign the increase of the nation, there may be secured both the stability of the government and the national independence. Then let my motto be “The man and woman who shall live correctly and bring forth children, they are my people.” And I charge you parents, take every care of your little ones. And to you children also I say, obey your parents.

  The increase of the people, the advancement of agriculture and commerce—these are the objects which my government will mainly strive to accomplish.

  Prime Minister Gladstone Argues for Toleration and the Rights of Freethinkers in the House of Commons

  “The true and the wise course is not to deal out religious liberty by halves, by quarters, and by fractions but to deal it out entire….”

  British Statesman William Ewart Gladstone—the GOM, or Grand Old Man—served as England’s prime minister four times in the late nineteenth century. As the dominant voice of the liberal party, Gladstone opposed imperialism abroad an
d sought reforms at home, seeking to liberate Ireland from English rule and advocating the need for education and religious toleration.

  A devout Christian, Gladstone nevertheless spoke out in 1883 for an “affirmation bill” that would allow freethinkers to affirm their allegiance without pretense of religion. Freethinker Charles Bradlaugh was seeking to enter the House of Commons without an oath of “So help me God,” and on April 26, 1883, Gladstone lent his support to the affirmation bill.

  The complete text of Gladstone’s speech included references to classical and historical authorities in arguing for religious toleration of the irreligious and for “the interests of civil liberty.” In its shortened form, the speech shows the oratorical power of Gladstone, particularly his use of balanced phrases (“a real test, a real safeguard”) and parallelism (“not a wholesome, but an unwholesome, lesson” and “the most inexpressible calamity which can fall either upon a man or upon a nation”). Despite the forceful conclusion of his impassioned argument, Gladstone was unable to prevent the narrow defeat of the affirmation bill.

  “You cannot fight against the future,” Gladstone had warned in an 1866 speech on the Reform Bill. “Time is on our side.” The same proved true of his words on admitting freethinkers; Charles Bradlaugh took the oath in the following Parliament, and within five years an affirmation bill had been passed.

  In the U.S. Constitution, the presidential oath reads, “I do solemnly swear (or affirm)….” The chief justice, at the swearing-in, always asks the president-elect to choose (the only president to choose to “affirm” was Herbert Hoover, a Quaker, whose religion frowns on swearing in public).

  ***

  …THE RIGHT HONORABLE gentleman who led the opposition to this bill said that this was not a question of difference of religion, but that it was a question between religion and irreligion—between religion and the absence of all religion—and clearly the basis of the right honorable gentleman’s speech was not that we were to tolerate any belief but that we were not to tolerate no belief. I mean by tolerating to admit, to recognize, to legislate for the purpose of permitting entrance into the House of Commons.