Page images
PDF
EPUB
[graphic][merged small][merged small]
[graphic]

E

FREDERICK DOUGLASS AND BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

These two Orators, of African descent, were both born in slavery and rose to eminence by their own efforts. Frederick Douglass was the orator of Emancipation, and Booker T. Washington is the orator of Education and Civilization of the Negro Race, and the head of the Tuskeegee Institute in Alabama.

[graphic]
[ocr errors]

WILLIAM M. EVARTS ADDRESSING THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION, 1877
This was an historic event of the greatest importance. The Assembly Included James G. Blaine, James
A. Garfield and other distinguished American Orators, many of whose well-known faces are recognizable
in this picture. Mr. Evarts was one of the most eminent lawyers and orators of his day.

[ocr errors]

JAMES G. BLAINE AND THOMAS B. REED

These distinguished American Orators won high place in oratory, both in and out of Congress. The former was known as the "Plumed Knight" for the popular addresses he made in campaigns for presidency, and the latter as "Cza Reed" for his method of ruling as Speaker of the House.

[blocks in formation]

to inquire authentically into the history of its struggles, to take official and avowed pains to ascertain the moment when its success may be recognized, consistently, ever, with the great code that keeps the peace of the world, abstaining from everything which shall give any nation a right under the law of nations to utter one word of complaint, still less to retaliate by war-the sympathy, but also the neutrality, of Washington; how much to compose with honor a concurrence of difficulties with the first Power in the world, which anything less than the highest degree of discre tion, firmness, ability, and means of commanding respect and confidence at home and abroad would inevitably have conducted to the last calamity -a disputed boundary line of many hundred miles, from St. Croix to the Rocky Mountains, which divided an exasperated and impracticable border population, enlisted the pride and affected the interests and controlled the politics of particular States, as well as pressed on the peace and honor of the nation, which the most popular administrations of the era of the quietest and best public feelings, the times of Monroe and of Jackson, could not adjust; which had grown so complicated with other topics of excitement that one false step, right or left, would have been a step down a precipice-this line settled for ever-the claim of England to search our ships for the suppression of the slave-trade silenced for ever, and a new engagement entered into by treaty, binding the national faith to contribute a specific naval force for putting an end to the great crime of man-the long practice of England to enter an American ship and impress from its crew terminated for ever; the deck henceforth guarded sacredly and completely by the flag; how much, by profound discernment, by eloquent speech, by devoted life to strengthen the ties of Union, and breathe the fine and strong spirit of nationality through all our numbers; how much most of all, last of all, after the war with Mexico-needless if his counsels had governed-had ended in so vast an acquisition of territory, in presenting to the two great antagonistic sections of our country so vast an area to enter on, so imperial a prize to contend for, and the accursed fraternal strife had begun-how much then, when, rising to the measure of a true, and difficult, and rare greatness, remembering that he had a country to save as well as a local constituency to gratify, laying all the wealth, all the hopes, of an illustrious life on the altar of a hazardous patriotism, he sought and won the more exceeding glory which now attends-which in the next age shall more conspicuously attend-his name who composes an agitated and saves a sinking land; recall this series of conduct and influence, study them carefully in their facts and results-the reading of years-and you attain to a true appreciation of this aspect of his greatness, his public character and

« PreviousContinue »