Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (15 page)

While I give you these assurances, and pledge myself in the most unequivocal manner to exert whatever ability I am possessed of in your favor, let me entreat you, gentlemen, on your part, not to take any measures which, viewed in the calm light of reason, will lessen the dignity and sully the glory you have hitherto maintained; let me request you to rely on the plighted faith of your country, and place a full confidence in the purity of the intentions of Congress; that, previous to your dissolution as an army, they will cause all your accounts to be fairly liquidated, as directed in their resolutions, which were published to you two days ago, and that they will adopt the most effectual measures in their power to render ample justice to you, for your faithful and meritorious services. And let me conjure you, in the name of our common country, as you value your own sacred honor, as you respect the rights of humanity, and as you regard the military and national character of America, to express your utmost horror and detestation of the man who wishes, under any specious pretenses, to overturn the liberties of our country, and who wickedly attempts to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.

By thus determining and thus acting, you will pursue the plain and
direct road to the attainment of your wishes. You will defeat the insidious designs of our enemies, who are compelled to resort from open force to secret artifice. You will give one more distinguished proof of unexampled patriotism and patient virtue, rising superior to the pressure of the most complicated sufferings. And you will, by the dignity of your conduct, afford occasion for posterity to say, when speaking of the glorious example you have exhibited to mankind, “Had this day been wanting, the world had never seen the last stage of perfection to which human nature is capable of attaining.”

***

At the conclusion of his speech, which he read from pages of his own clear writing, Washington looked at his sullen audience and drew a letter from his pocket. It was from a member of Congress, he said, explaining the straits the country was in and what that body was attempting to do to pay the debts of the war. He squinted at the writing in the letter and could not go on. The audience of officers stirred in their seats, wondering what was wrong with their commander. Washington then groped in his waistcoat pocket and drew out an item that only his intimates, and very few in that audience, had seen him use. They were stunned to see him required to put on a pair of glasses to read the crabbed writing.

“Gentlemen,” he apologized, “you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for I have not only grown gray but almost blind in the service of my country.”

Biographer James Thomas Flexner writes, “This simple statement achieved what all Washington’s rhetoric and all his arguments had been unable to achieve. The officers were instantly in tears, and, from behind the shining drops, their eyes looked with love at the commander who had led them all so far and long. Washington quietly finished reading the congressman’s letter. He knew the battle was won, and avoiding, with his instinctive sense of the dramatic, any anticlimax, he walked out of the hall….”

Did he plan to use his infirmity to wring their hearts that way? Was his remark, so felicitously and poignantly phrased, totally spontaneous? We’ll never know, but the officers then voted to ask Washington to forward their request to Congress, the granting of which would “prevent any further machinations of designing men.”

Richard Price, a nonconformist English clergyman, wrote pamphlets on ethical, political, and economic subjects, inveighed against the oppression of American colonists, and supported the tide of revolution that swept across the end of the eighteenth century. His radical sermon “On the Love of Our Country” was preached to a Protestant Dissenters’ society on November 4, 1789; supporting political upheaval in France, it seemed to associate the nonconformist split from the Church of England a century earlier (the Glorious Revolution of 1688–89) with the ideals of the French Revolution, and was the “red rag” that drew the parliamentarian Edmund Burke—who saw anarchy and atheism on the march in Europe—into the conservative forefront.

The peroration beginning with the exclamatory “What an eventful period is this!” is a classic because it rivets the audience by addressing discrete, contrasting groups. The penultimate paragraph is addressed directly to the “friends of freedom” and begins with the imperative “Be encouraged”; the final paragraph is addressed to the “oppressors” and directs them to “tremble.” In this way, the orator divides the world into good and bad, right and wrong, and thrusts upon his listeners his unmistakable stand.

***

WE ARE MET
to thank God for that event in this country to which the name of
the Revolution
has been given; and which, for more than a century, it has been usual for the friends of freedom, and more especially Protestant Dissenters, under the title of the Revolution Society, to celebrate with expressions of joy and exultation. My highly valued and excellent friend who addressed you on this occasion last year has given you an interesting account of the principal circumstances that attended this event, and of the reasons we have for rejoicing in it. By a
bloodless victory, the fetters which despotism had been long preparing for us were broken; the rights of the people were asserted, a tyrant expelled, and a sovereign of our own choice appointed in his room. Security was given to our property, and our consciences were emancipated. The bounds of free inquiry were enlarged; the volume in which are the words of eternal life was laid more open to our examination; and that era of light and liberty was introduced among us by which we have been made an example to other kingdoms and became the instructors of the world. Had it not been for this deliverance, the probability is that, instead of being thus distinguished, we should now have been a base people, groaning under the infamy and misery of popery and slavery. Let us, therefore, offer thanksgivings to God, the author of all our blessings.

…We have particular reason, as Protestant Dissenters, to rejoice on this occasion. It was at this time we were rescued from persecution, and obtained the liberty of worshiping God in the manner we think most acceptable to him. It was then our meetinghouses were opened, our worship was taken under the protection of the law, and the principles of toleration gained a triumph. We have, therefore, on this occasion, peculiar reasons for thanksgiving. But let us remember that we ought not to satisfy ourselves with thanksgivings. Our gratitude, if genuine, will be accompanied with endeavors to give stability to the deliverance our country has obtained, and to extend and improve the happiness with which the Revolution has blessed us. Let us, in particular, take care not to forget the principles of the Revolution. This society has, very properly, in its reports, held out these principles, as an instruction to the public. I will only take notice of the three following:

First: the right to liberty of conscience in religious matters.

Secondly: the right to resist power when abused. And,

Thirdly: the right to choose our own governors; to cashier them for misconduct; and to frame a government for ourselves.

On these three principles, and more especially the last, was the Revolution founded. Were it not true that liberty of conscience is a sacred right; that power abused justifies resistance; and that civil authority is a delegation from the people—were not, I say, all this true, the Revolution would have been not an
assertion
but an
invasion
of rights; not a
revolution
but a
rebellion
. Cherish in your breasts this conviction, and act under its influence; detecting the odious doctrines which, had they been acted upon in this country, would have left us at this time wretched slaves—doctrines which imply that God made mankind to be oppressed and plundered, and which are no less a blasphemy against him than an insult on common sense….

You may reasonably expect that I should now close this address to you. But I cannot yet dismiss you. I must not conclude without recalling, particularly, to your recollection a consideration to which I have more than once alluded, and which, probably, your thoughts have been all along anticipating—a consideration with which my mind is impressed more than I can express. I mean, the consideration of the favorableness of the present times to all exertions in the cause of public liberty.

What an eventful period is this! I am thankful that I have lived to it; and I could almost say, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” I have lived to see a diffusion of knowledge which has undermined superstition and error—I have lived to see the rights of men better understood than ever; and nations panting for liberty which seemed to have lost the idea of it. I have lived to see thirty millions of people, indignant and resolute, spurning at slavery, and demanding liberty with an irresistible voice; their king led in triumph, and an arbitrary monarch surrendering himself to his subjects. After sharing in the benefits of one revolution, I have been spared to be a witness to two other revolutions, both glorious. And now, methinks, I see the ardor for liberty catching and spreading; a general amendment beginning in human affairs; the dominion of priests giving way to the dominion of reason and conscience.

Be encouraged, all ye friends of freedom and writers in its defense! The times are auspicious. Your labors have not been in vain. Behold kingdoms, admonished by you, starting from sleep, breaking their fetters, and claiming justice from their oppressors! Behold, the light you have struck out, after setting America free, reflected to France, and there kindled into a blaze that lays despotism in ashes and warms and illuminates Europe!

Tremble, all ye oppressors of the world! Take warning all ye supporters of slavish governments and slavish hierarchies! Call no more (absurdly and wickedly)
reformation
innovation. You cannot now hold the world in darkness. Struggle no longer against increasing light and liberality. Restore to mankind their rights, and consent to the correction of abuses, before they and you are destroyed together.

Parisian Lawyer Georges-Jacques Danton was a tyrant in revolutionary clothing. He established himself as a patriot by helping lead the storming of the Tuileries in August 1792 to overthrow the Bourbon monarchy, but his passionate oratory and merciless zeal were directed more to the acquisition of power than to the dream of democracy. He professed not to care for popularity: “Let France be free, though my name be cursed.” A few weeks after the success of the Revolution, and almost two years before the Reign of Terror, which led to his own execution on the guillotine, Danton made this speech on the defense of the new republic, already threatened by invading Prussians and Austrians. Though it is remembered for the line enshrining audacity, Danton’s rallying call to the sans-culottes to defend the republic contained a proposal of the most draconian penalty for dissent.

***

IT SEEMS A
satisfaction for the ministers of a free people to announce to them that their country will be saved, All are stirred, all are enthused, all burn to enter the combat.

You know that Verdun is not yet in the power of our enemies and that its garrison swears to immolate the first who breathes a proposition of surrender.

One portion of our people will guard our frontiers, another will dig and arm the entrenchments, the third with pikes will defend the interior of our cities, Paris will second these great efforts. The commissioners of the Commune will solemnly proclaim to the citizens the invitation to arm and march to the defense of the country. At such a moment you can proclaim that the capital deserves the esteem of all France. At such a moment this
National Assembly becomes a veritable committee of war. We ask that you concur with us in directing this sublime movement of the people, by naming commissioners to second and assist all these great measures. We ask that anyone refusing to give personal service or to furnish arms shall meet the punishment of death. We ask that proper instructions be given to the citizens to direct their movements. We ask that carriers be sent to all the departments to notify them of the decrees that you proclaim here. The tocsin we shall sound is not the alarm signal of danger; it orders the charge on the enemies of France. To conquer we have need to dare, to dare again, always to dare! And France will be saved!

(Pour les vaincre, il nous faut de l’audace; encore de l’audace, toujours de l’audace; et la France est sauvée.)

After making a reputation for ferocity by giving a crowd of Parisian rioters what he called “a whiff of grapeshot”—and killing one hundred—Napoleon Bonaparte made his bid for power in 1796. He sold the French regime on a plan for an Italian campaign, married Josephine, and set out at the head of a ragtag French army.

He understood, as few commanders did, the need to take care of the essential needs of his men; “An army marches on its stomach” is a
remark attributed to him, as well as “The first virtue in a soldier is endurance of fatigue; courage is only the second virtue.” He determined to keep his men fed by living off the land in Italy, to rest them when possible, and to instill in them his own sense of destiny.

All his addresses to his troops began with the salutation “Soldiers!” He put pride in the word and, in crediting “his” army with triumphs, had no need to credit himself. In his oratory, he employed the internal dialogue (“Shall it be said of us…?”) and the visionary quotation to promise fame (“Your fellow citizens, pointing you out, shall say, ‘There goes one who…’”). Winston Churchill would use the same history-conscious construction in his predictive quotation “This was their finest hour.”