American Oratory: Or Selections from the Speeches of Eminent Americans (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from American Oratory: Or Selections From the Speeches of Eminent Americans

No apology can be required for presenting to the American public a volume of Speeches selected from the best efforts of their own statesmen. Public discussion is elsewhere the province of a few; in our country, it is the duty of almost all. It is not only desirable, there fore, but absolutely necessary, that all should have at hand those models, which the peculiar character of our institutions, the tone of our national thought, and the exigencies of our history, have combined to produce. Foreign orators may serve as examples of style, but the inhabitants of a republic must seek at home for the intellectual results of the government they have chosen, and for the illustration of those principles by which it is to be sustained. If they cannot always find the same refinement of language, or the same elaborateness of thought, which in older countries is the result of heredi tary wealth and more scholastic education, they will discover at least a vigorous and masculine diction, patriotic sentiments, and unflinching independence, the appropriate attendants upon themes for the most part grave, and frequently severe.

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