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 fcopyebk.qxd 8/15/01 9:52AM Pageii For my children, Phinney and Will Copyright © 2001 by Suzanne McIntire. All rights reserved American Heritage and the eagle logo are registered trademarks of American Heritage Inc. Their use is pursuant to a license agreement. Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Design and production by Navta Associates, Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 750-4744. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158-0012, (212) 850-6011, fax (212) 850-6008, e-mail: [email protected]. The publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the pub- lisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. If professional advice or other expert assistance is required, the services of a competent professional person should be sought. This title is also available in print as ISBN 0-471-38942-0. Some content that appears in the print version of this book may not be available in this electronic edition. For more information about Wiley products, visit our web site at www.Wiley.com 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. 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 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”