The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

Of course, no one can tell a man what to do to become an orator. The great orator has that wonderful thing called presence. He has that strange something known as magnetism. He must have a flexible, musical voice, capable of expressing the pathetic, the humorous, the heroic. His body must move in unison with his thought. He must be a reasoner, a logician. He must have a keen sense of humor —of the laughable. He must have wit, sharp and quick. He must have sympathy. His smiles should be the neighbors of his tears. He must have imagination. He should give eagles to the air, and painted moths should flutter in the sunlight.

While I cannot tell a man what to do to become an orator, I can tell him a few things not to do. There should be no introduction to an oration. The orator should commence with his subject. There should be no prelude, no flourish, no apology, no explanation. He should say nothing about himself. Like a sculptor, he stands by his block of stone. Every stroke is for a purpose. As he works the form begins to appear. When the statue is finished the workman stops. Nothing is more difficult than a perfect close. Few poems, few pieces of music, few novels end well. A good story, a great speech, a perfect poem should end just at the proper point. The bud, the blossom, the fruit. No delay. A great speech is a crystallization in its logic, an efflorescence in its poetry.

I have not heard many speeches. Most of the great speakers in our country were before my time. I heard Beecher, and he was an orator. He had imagination, humor and intensity. His brain was as fertile as the valleys of the tropics. He was too broad, too philosophic, too poetic for the pulpit. Now and then, he broke the fetters of his creed, escaped from his orthodox prison, and became sublime.

Theodore Parker was an orator. He preached great sermons. His sermons on "Old Age" and "Webster," and his address on "Liberty" were filled with great thoughts, marvelously expressed. When he dealt with human events, with realities, with things he knew, he was superb. When he spoke of freedom, of duty, of living to the ideal, of mental integrity, he seemed inspired.

Webster I never heard. He had great qualities; force, dignity, clearness, grandeur; but, after all, he worshiped the past. He kept his back to the sunrise. There was no dawn in his brain. He was not creative. He had no spirit of prophecy. He lighted no torch. He was not true to his ideal. He talked sometimes as though his head was among the stars, but he stood in the gutter. In the name of religion he tried to break the will of Stephen Girard—to destroy the greatest charity in all the world; and in the name of the same religion he defended the Fugitive Slave Law. His purpose was the same in both cases. He wanted office. Yet he uttered a few very great paragraphs, rich with thought, perfectly expressed.

Clay I never heard, but he must have had a commanding presence, a chivalric bearing, an heroic voice. He cared little for the past. He was a natural leader, a wonderful talker—forcible, persuasive, convincing. He was not a poet, not a master of metaphor, but he was practical. He kept in view the end to be accomplished. He was the opposite of Webster. Clay was the morning, Webster the evening. Clay had large views, a wide horizon. He was ample, vigorous, and a little tyrannical.

Benton was thoroughly commonplace. He never uttered an inspired word. He was an intense egoist. No subject was great enough to make him forget himself. Calhoun was a political Calvinist—narrow, logical, dogmatic. He was not an orator. He delivered essays, not orations. I think it was in 1851 that Kossuth visited this country. He was an orator. There was no man, at that time, under our flag, who could speak English as well as he. In the first speech I read of Kossuth's was this line: "Russia is the rock against which the sigh for freedom breaks." In this you see the poet, the painter, the orator.

S. S. Prentiss was an orator, but, with the recklessness of a gamester, he threw his life away. He said profound and beautiful things, but he lacked application. He was uneven, disproportioned, saying ordinary things on great occasions, and now and then, without the slightest provocation, uttering the sublimest and most beautiful thoughts.

In my judgment, Corwin was the greatest orator of them all. He had more arrows in his quiver. He had genius. He was full of humor, pathos, wit, and logic. He was an actor. His body talked. His meaning was in his eyes and lips. Gov. O. P. Morton of Indiana had the greatest power of statement of any man I ever heard. All the argument was in his statement. The facts were perfectly grouped. The conclusion was a necessity.

The best political speech I ever heard was made by Gov. Richard J. Oglesby of Illinois. It had every element of greatness—reason, humor, wit, pathos, imagination, and perfect naturalness. That was in the grand years, long ago. Lincoln had reason, wonderful humor, and wit, but his presence was not good. His voice was poor, his gestures awkward—but his thoughts were profound. His speech at Gettysburg is one of the masterpieces of the world. The word "here" is used four or five times too often. Leave the "heres" out, and the speech is perfect.