William H. Seward.—Cautious, clear, incisive, firm in his grasp of the laws of political history, William Henry Seward (1811–1872) foresaw what Douglas could not, that the struggle with slavery was an irrepressible conflict. In New York State, of which he became Governor, he was the untiring enemy of political opportunism in every shape. An unsuccessful aspirant in 1860 for the Presidency, he eventually overcame his lack of confidence in Lincoln, and as Lincoln’s Secretary of State was of inestimable service in maintaining our relations with England during the course of the Rebellion. His “Diplomatic History of the Civil War in America” was published posthumously.
Salmon P. Chase.—Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, Salmon Portland Chase (1808–1873), was not a facile speaker, but, tall and commanding, one of the handsomest men in the Senate, he was both dignified and impressive. Like Choate, he graduated from Dartmouth and studied with William Wirt. As a practising lawyer he engaged (1837) in the defence of persons on trial for alleged violation of the Fugitive Slave Act; in the debate upon the Kansas-Nebraska Bill (1854) he advocated “free soil,” and insisted upon “the absolute divorce of the General Government” from all connection with slavery. He was a Senator both before and after holding the governorship of Ohio, and again just before Lincoln summoned him into the Cabinet. In 1864 he was made Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, a position which he honoured till his death.
Edward Everett.—In the delivery of Edward Everett (1794–1865) “there was nothing in manner, person, dress, gesture, tone, accent, or emphasis too minute for his attention.” From boyhood he had the gift of eloquence, which he developed by assiduous practice. Taking high honours at Harvard when but seventeen, he went into the Unitarian ministry, and began preaching at the Brattle Street Church in Boston, with immediate success. Invited to assume a chair at Harvard, he studied abroad in preparation, and then from 1819 to 1825 taught Greek. He left his professorship to become a member of the House of Representatives. Ten years later he was elected Governor of Massachusetts. In 1841 General Harrison appointed him Minister to England; on his return he accepted the presidency of Harvard. He succeeded Webster as Secretary of State under Fillmore; and in the national election of 1860, representing the forces that desired a compromise between North and South, he was candidate for Vice-President of the United States. During his stay in the Senate Everett also was heard on the Kansas-Nebraska Bill. His orations were published in four volumes. His “Lecture on the Character of Washington” (1856), frequently repeated, and his “Eulogy on Webster” (1859) were among his most splendid efforts. He made a remarkable address at Gettysburg, though it now seems academic beside that of Lincoln on the same occasion.
Abraham Lincoln.—For a manual of literature the essential thing in the life of President Lincoln (1809–1865) is the ennoblement that went on in his eloquence, as his character developed under the increasing gravity and tension of his public career, and as his individual spirit became more and more identified with the agonising soul of a nation. The simplicity and directness of his mental operations are apparent in any of his earlier letters and speeches; they were sufficiently evident to those who heard his debate with Douglas. But his utterance gained in dignity and closeness of texture when his native impulses for good became free from idiosyncrasy, and when his innate moral rightness grew into a deep and conscious religion. In all literature there are few things more significant than the chastening of style that accompanied the chastening of Lincoln’s personality. There is a noticeable difference even between the manner of his first and that of his second inaugural address. In the meantime he had pronounced his speech at the dedication of the National Cemetery on the battlefield of Gettysburg, November 19, 1863. There, devoid of all pretence to rhetorical artifice, yet in the perfection of English style, Lincoln gave to the world a masterpiece of literature, issuing as it were from the life-blood of the people; a masterpiece in which art and life are married, and imaginative and literal truth are become one flesh. Says Mr. Bryce:
That famous Gettysburg speech is the best example one could desire of the characteristic quality of Lincoln’s eloquence. It is a short speech. It is wonderfully terse in expression. It is quiet, so quiet that at the moment it did not make upon the audience, an audience wrought up by a long and highly-decorated harangue from one of the prominent orators of the day, an impression at all commensurate to that which it began to make as soon as it was read over America and Europe. There is in it not a touch of what we call rhetoric, or of any striving after effect. Alike in thought and in language it is simple, plain, direct. But it states certain truths and principles in phrases so aptly chosen and so forcible, that one feels as if those truths could have been conveyed in no other words, and as if this deliverance of them were made for all time. Words so simple and so strong could have come only from one who had meditated so long on the primal facts of American history and popular government that the truths those facts taught him had become like the truths of mathematics in their clearness, their breadth, and their precision.
Miscellaneous and Later Orators.—It is obvious that the lives of many ante-bellum orators overlapped upon the era of Reconstruction; and the fifty years of political activity since the Civil War have brought forth an ever growing number of men concerned in affairs of state. However, there are few in this last to compare in eloquence with those of the preceding half-century. Among recognised orators a quieter tone on the whole has prevailed; not altogether that of Lincoln, nor yet that characteristic of the best speakers in the time of Madison and the younger Adams; nevertheless marking an improvement upon the flowery and pedantic effusions of an intermediate age represented by Choate, Winthrop, and, to a certain extent, Everett. The passage of laws and the expediting of other public business have come to depend more upon influence and effort exerted off the floor of the House and the Senate, and less upon forensic argument and persuasion. With the enormous growth of the population and the corresponding increase in the size of our legislative bodies, public orators have in most cases been satisfied, perforce, with a local reputation. The following are chosen miscellaneously.
John B. Gough (1817–1886) was an English editor, who fell a victim to alcoholism, and being rescued from his habit by a friend of temperance, dedicated himself to the cause of rescuing others. He lectured widely in America, enthralling large audiences by his descriptions of the ruin worked by alcoholic beverages, and by his graphic narratives of lapsing and reformed drunkards.
George William Curtis (1824–1892) was in youth (1842) attached to the community at Brook Farm. On returning from studies in Berlin and Italy, he became connected with the publishers of Putnam’s Magazine. The management of this periodical failing, Curtis assumed a financial liability for which he was not legally responsible, and spent twenty years in lecturing, to pay off the indebtedness. He was noted as editor of Harper’s Monthly, and as a writer for Harper’s Weekly and Harper’s Bazar. He was a virile speaker on civil-service reform and other subjects involving the national welfare. Wherever he went he inculcated high political ideals. His “Orations and Addresses” were edited by Professor Charles Eliot Norton.
James G. Blaine (1830–1893), a Pennsylvanian, commenced life as an editor in Maine, became a member of the State Legislature there, and thence proceeded to Congress. He made a brilliant record as Speaker of the House of Representatives (1869–1875). In 1876 he was appointed United States Senator from Maine. Several times a Presidential possibility, he was the Republican nominee in 1884, when he was unexpectedly defeated by Cleveland. Blaine’s speech on the remonetisation of silver (1878) has been often cited. He was clear and forcible, save for a slight lisp, but his character was not such as to force conviction home.
It is impossible in the space allotted to proceed further with recent or contemporary orators in political or secular life. One ought not to neglect such men as Carl Schurz (1829–1906) or Bourke Cockran (born in 1854), or among the last few presidents, Benjamin Harrison (1833–1901). Mr. Harrison, an astute lawyer, could, on short notice, and seemingly without effort, deliver the choicest of addresses, well turned, fluent, and of a convenient length. An account of American political eloquence properly ends with a reference to the distinguished statesman, now President, and after Washington and Lincoln the third among our sons of light, to whom this volume is dedicated. From the most conspicuous of public orators at the present day, we return to the early divines and theologians.