The greatness of a speech is not in the ears of those who are present to hear it. There were many gathered in Gettysburg who were disappointed at the president's brief remarks. There were even more gathered in Nuremberg who rose to ecstasy on wings of hate provided by a madman. A great speech isn't measured in the applause it brings, or in the approving comments in the next day's papers.
It's in the echoes. It's in the way the words move down the corridor of years, painting events that come after, living in the minds of those who were not even alive when the words were uttered.
For those of us who lived through "I have a dream" or "ask not," those few words are enough to bring back a scene, a time, and heart-wrenching emotions. For a generation before, "but fear itself" must have brought much the same reaction. Before that, there was a "cross of gold," and before that "the better angels of our nature."
And before that, was a speech delivered by a young man of 28, a man just entering public life. You may never have heard this speech, but it's words not only echo in our modern world, they resonate.
A few weeks before this speech, violence had broken out near St. Louis. Abolitionist newspaperman, Elijah Lovejoy, had been burned out of his offices and died defending his press against the mob. It heralded days of anarchy that included a mob taking hold of an African American man and setting him on fire.
It was against this background, that the Young Men's Lyceum met in Springfield, Illinois. They were addressed that bitter January day by a man who was decades away from national prominence, but who already understood the use of words, and the weight of the forces pressing on the nation. Abraham Lincoln's speech that day, deserves to be read in full, but allow me to give you just enough. Enough to taste the flavor of Lincoln's words, and enough to sense how times may change, but truths do not.
Lincoln started that day, by reminding his listeners that America's situation was uniquely gifted by natural and human resources...
We find ourselves in the peaceful possession, of the fairest portion of the earth... We find ourselves under the government of a system of political institutions, conducing more essentially to the ends of civil and religious liberty, than any of which the history of former times tells us.... they are a legacy bequeathed us, by a once hardy, brave, and patriotic, but now lamented and departed race of ancestors.
Having quickly spoken of the debt they owe the past, and the goals they must adhere to for the future, Lincoln asks what perils have to be avoided to achieve those goals.
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? ... Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth in their military chest; with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
That last line is worth re-reading a thousand times. Not only is the language beautiful in its own right, what it says is as solidly correct today as it was then: America need not fear any invader. No force is powerful enough to threaten us. At least, no
outside force.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
How must Lincoln's audience have responded to these words? Remember, war was still more than two decades in the future. There must have been many who already regarded it as inevitable, and just as many who cheered for it to come. Lincoln saw it, even then, for the horror it would be, and he saw the rising wind that would lead to the storm.
I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.
At this point, Lincoln turns to the specifics of the horrors in St. Louis, and of mob violence in Mississippi, before returning to how these troubles herald more than just local disturbances. He saw how this turmoil was leading the government toward a reduction in freedoms, and he saw how this was perhaps the only action that could make things even worse.
I know the American People are much attached to their Government;--I know they would suffer much for its sake;--I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence; and to that, sooner or later, it must come.
Finally, Lincoln is ready to offer his prescription for the country, the shield against the on threat that can seriously wound us.
Let every American, every lover of liberty, every well wisher to his posterity, swear by the blood of the Revolution, never to violate in the least particular, the laws of the country; and never to tolerate their violation by others. As the patriots of seventy-six did to the support of the Declaration of Independence, so to the support of the Constitution and Laws, let every American pledge his life, his property, and his sacred honor;--let every man remember that to violate the law, is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear the character of his own, and his children's liberty. Let reverence for the laws, be breathed by every American mother, to the lisping babe, that prattles on her lap--let it be taught in schools, in seminaries, and in colleges; let it be written in Primers, spelling books, and in Almanacs;--let it be preached from the pulpit, proclaimed in legislative halls, and enforced in courts of justice. And, in short, let it become the political religion of the nation; and let the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the grave and the gay, of all sexes and tongues, and colors and conditions, sacrifice unceasingly upon its altars.
Amen. When things were at their most dire, Lincoln didn't call for hatred. He didn't rouse men to anger, or stir them to lead a second revolution. He called on them to
follow the letter of the law and protect every word of the Constitution. He knew that this was the way, the only way -- then or now -- to protect our country and secure our freedoms. The prescience of this speech, it applicability to the twenty-first century as well as the nineteenth, is little short of astounding. He knew he was speaking to the issue of slavery on that cold day. He was calling out both those who tried to defend -- and those who sought to end -- slavery through the application of violence, but he also spoke to future issues, and future peoples. Among them, he warns against the ambition of those who may not want to fit their goals within the boundaries of the laws and Constitution.
The question then, is, can that gratification be found in supporting and maintaining an edifice that has been erected by others? Most certainly it cannot.... What! think you these places would satisfy an Alexander, a Caesar, or a Napoleon?--Never!... It denies that it is glory enough to serve under any chief. It scorns to tread in the footsteps of any predecessor, however illustrious. It thirsts and burns for distinction; and, if possible, it will have it, whether at the expense of emancipating slaves, or enslaving freemen.
Lincoln saw then that there were men who were willing to take any goal, even one as noble as freeing the slaves, and use it as a means of furthering their own glory. And he saw that those who had "good intentions" could be just as much of a disaster for the country as those who worked in darkness. At the close of his speech, Lincoln returns again to the people who came before, the people who must surely were thought of as "the greatest generation" by men like Lincoln, following fifty years behind. He pointed out then that living memory of the sacrifices and ideas that sparked the revolution would soon be lost. I'm going to leave the last bit of the speech mostly intact, so you can walk away with the rhythm and power of the language. A young man speaking to other young men, at the dawn of a conflict that would touch the nation with a new fire.
I do not mean to say, that the scenes of the revolution are now or ever will be entirely forgotten; but that like every thing else, they must fade upon the memory of the world, and grow more and more dim by the lapse of time.... they cannot be so universally known, nor so vividly felt, as they were by the generation just gone to rest. At the close of that struggle, nearly every adult male had been a participator in some of its scenes. The consequence was, that of those scenes, in the form of a husband, a father, a son or brother, a living history was to be found in every family-- a history bearing the indubitable testimonies of its own authenticity, in the limbs mangled, in the scars of wounds received, in the midst of the very scenes related--a history, too, that could be read and understood alike by all, the wise and the ignorant, the learned and the unlearned.--But those histories are gone. They can be read no more forever. They were a fortress of strength; but, what invading foeman could never do, the silent artillery of time has done; the leveling of its walls. They are gone.--They were a forest of giant oaks; but the all-resistless hurricane has swept over them, and left only, here and there, a lonely trunk, despoiled of its verdure, shorn of its foliage; unshading and unshaded, to murmur in a few gentle breezes, and to combat with its mutilated limbs, a few more ruder storms, then to sink, and be no more.
They were the pillars of the temple of liberty; and now, that they have crumbled away, that temple must fall, unless we, their descendants, supply their places with other pillars, hewn from the solid quarry of sober reason. Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.--Let those materials be moulded into general intelligence, sound morality, and in particular, a reverence for the constitution and laws: and, that we improved to the last; that we remained free to the last; that we revered his name to the last; that, during his long sleep, we permitted no hostile foot to pass over or desecrate his resting place; shall be that which to learn the last trump shall awaken our WASHINGTON.
Upon these let the proud fabric of freedom rest, as the rock of its basis; and as truly as has been said of the only greater institution, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
There are many different candidates for "greatest speech in American history." Some 100 of the more recent ones are gathered here, and for many of them you can listen to recordings of how they were delivered. There were no recordings of that day in 1838. I don't know what the other members of the Young Men's Lyceum thought as the gangly Lincoln folded up his papers and left the stage. I can't tell you if they applauded.
But I hear applause. I hear the thunder of the guns that came after, the wailing of a shocked nation, and the dawning appreciation for what they had gained, and lost. I've no idea what Lincoln sounded like, but it's not a man's voice that delivers these words, it's the voice of irrevocable fate.
All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined... could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years... If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.