The American Heritage Book of Great American Speeches for Young People

306 Pages·2001·1.48 MB·English

by  Suzanne McIntire

M/S FM 4/16/01 3:52 PM Page i
®
Book of
Great American Speeches for
Young People
Edited by Suzanne McIntire
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
New York • Chichester • Weinheim • Brisbane • Singapore • Toronto
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For my children,
Phinney and Will
Copyright © 2001 by Suzanne McIntire. All rights reserved
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M/SFM 4/16/01 3:52PM Pageiii
Acknowledgments
It has been my great pleasure in compiling this collection to
work 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.
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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
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”
v
vi Contents
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”
Contents vii
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?”
viii Contents
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”