The Penguin Book of Historic Speeches

612 Pages·1997·2.02 MB·English

by  Various

PENGUIN BOOKS
THE PENGUIN BOOK OF HISTORIC SPEECHES
Brian MacArthur is associate editor of The Times. He was founder editor
of Today and The Times Higher Education Supplement, editor of the
Western Morning News and former deputy editor of the Sunday Times. He
has written Eddy Shah, Today and the Fleet Street Revolution and Deadline
Sunday, and edited Gulf War Despatches. He has been interested in the
power of oratory since first hearing Aneurin Bevan on the hustings in
1956 and has edited a companion anthology, The Penguin Book of
Twentieth-Century Speeches.
Brian MacArthur lives in London and has two daughters.
THE PENGUIN BOOK OF
HISTORIC SPEECHES
EDITED BY BRIAN M ARTHUR
AC
PENGUIN BOOKS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
www.penguin.com
First published by Viking 1995
Published in Penguin Books 1996
24
The selection copyright © Brian MacArthur, 1995
All rights reserved
The moral right of the editor has been asserted
The acknowledgements on pp. xxii–xxiii constitute an extension of this copyright page
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not,
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the
publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent
purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-14-196070-8
For Tessa MacArthur
CONTENTS
Introduction
Acknowledgements
ANCIENT TIMES
Moses ‘Thou shalt not…’ ( . 1250 )
c BC
Pericles ‘Athens crowns her sons’ (431 )
BC
Socrates ‘No evil can happen to a good man’ (399 )
BC
Demosthenes ‘I have always made common cause with the people’ (330 )
BC
Marcus Tullius Cicero ‘Among us you can dwell no longer’ (63 )
BC
Jesus of Nazareth ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit’ ( . 33)
c
Muhammad ‘Turn thy face towards the Sacred Mosque’ (7th century)
OF COMMONERS AND KINGS
Ethelbert ‘We do not wish to molest you’ (597)
William the Conqueror ‘Be ye the avengers of noble blood’ (1066)
John Ball ‘Cast off the yoke of bondage’ (1381)
Thomas Cranmer ‘I shall declare unto you my very faith’ (1556)
Queen Elizabeth I ‘I have the heart and stomach of a king’ (1588)
Queen Elizabeth I ‘To be a king’ (1601)
King James I ‘Kings are justly called Gods’ (1609)
Sir John Eliot ‘The exchequer… is empty… the jewels pawned’ (1628)
Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford ‘You, your estates, your posterity, lie
at the stake!’ (1641)
John Pym ‘He should perish by the justice of that law which he would have
subverted’ (1641)
John Pym ‘The cry of all England’ (1642)
Thomas Rainborowe ‘The poorest he’ (1647)
King Charles I ‘I go from a corruptible to an incorruptible crown’ (1649)
Oliver Cromwell ‘In the name of God, go!’ (1653)
Oliver Cromwell ‘Let God be judge between me and you’ (1658)
THE BIRTH OF THE UNITED STATES
John Winthrop ‘We shall be as a city upon a hill’ (1630)
Andrew Hamilton ‘The cause of liberty’ (1735)
James Otis ‘A man’s house is his castle’ (1761)
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ‘I rejoice that America has resisted’
(1766)
John Hancock ‘The tremendous bar of God!’ (1774)
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ‘The kingdom is undone’ (1775)
Edmund Burke ‘This spirit of A merican liberty’ (1775)
Patrick Henry ‘Give me liberty, or give me death!’ (1775)
Samuel Adams ‘Be yourselves, O Americans’ (1776)
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ‘You cannot conquer America’ (1777)
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ‘If we must fall, let us fall like men!’
(1778)
Benjamin Franklin ‘I agree to this Constitution with all its faults’ (1787)
Alexander Hamilton ‘The thing is a dream’ (1788)
CLASHES AMONG THE GLADIATORS
Sir Robert Walpole ‘I am conscious of no crime’ (1741)
William Pitt, 1st Earl of Chatham ‘Where law ends, there tyranny begins’
(1770)
Edmund Burke ‘He is not a member of Bristol, but he is a member of
Parliament’ (1774)
John Wilkes ‘The wounds given to the Constitution… are still bleeding’
(1775)
Charles James Fox ‘The most odious species of tyranny’ (1783)
Edmund Burke ‘He is doing indeed a great good’ (1783)
Charles James Fox ‘What is the difference between an absolute and a limited
monarchy?’ (1783)
Edmund Burke ‘I impeach Warren Hastings’ (1788)
Richard Brinsley Sheridan ‘Justice… august and pure’ (1788)
William Wilberforce ‘Let us make reparation to Africa’ (1789)
William Pitt the Younger ‘A barbarous traffic in slaves’ (1792)
Charles James Fox ‘The spirit of freedom’ (1795)
THE RIGHTS OF MAN
Mirabeau ‘Woe to the privileged orders!’ (1789)
Mirabeau ‘Hideous bankruptcy is here… And yet you deliberate!’ (1789)
Richard Price ‘Tremble all ye oppressors of the world!’ (1789)
Pierre Vergniaud ‘Your blood shall redden the earth’ (1792)
Georges Jacques Danton ‘To dare, to dare again, ever to dare!’ (1792)
Maximilien Robespierre ‘Louis must perish because our country must live!’
(1792)
Thomas Erskine ‘The rights of man’ (1792)
Georges Jacques Danton ‘The people have nothing but blood’ (1793)
Pierre Vergniaud ‘The Revolution, like Saturn, devouring successively all her
children’ (1793)
Pierre Vergniaud ‘Our moderation has saved the country’ (1793)
Camille Desmoulins ‘It is a crime to be a king’ (1793)
Maximilien Robespierre ‘Terror is nothing else than justice’ (1794)
Maximilien Robespierre ‘The Supreme Being’ (1794)
Maximilien Robespierre ‘Death is the beginning of immortality’ (1794)
William Pitt the Younger ‘Danger with indelible shame and disgrace’ (1797)
William Pitt the Younger ‘An implacable spirit of destruction’ (1800)
Charles James Fox ‘Must the bowels of Great Britain be torn out?’ (1800)
William Pitt the Younger ‘Europe is not to be saved by any single man’
(1805)
TOWARDS CIVIL WAR
George Washington ‘I retire from the great theatre of action’ (1783)
George Washington ‘Observe good faith and justice towards all nations’
(1796)
Gouverneur Morris ‘I am an American’ (1800)
Thomas Jefferson ‘Equal and exact justice to all men’ (1801)
Red Jacket ‘We also have a religion’ (1805)
Tecumseh ‘Once a happy race. Since made miserable’ (1810)
Simon Bolivar ‘The triple yoke of ignorance, tyranny and corruption’ (1819)
Daniel Webster ‘The first scene of our history’ (1820)
Daniel Webster ‘Liberty and union, now and forever’ (1830)
Seth Luther ‘We have borne these evils by far too long’ ( . 1832)
c
John C. Calhoun ‘The controversy is… between power and liberty’ (1833)
Wendell Phillips ‘The priceless value of the freedom of the press’ (1837)
Henry Clay ‘The dove of peace’ (1850)
John C. Calhoun ‘This cry of union’ (1850)
Daniel Webster ‘Liberty and union’ (1850)
Frederick Douglass ‘I hear the mournful wail of millions’ (1852)
THE AGE OF IMPROVEMENT
Henry Brougham ‘I stand up… against the friends and followers of Mr Pitt’
(1812)
George Canning ‘The interest of England’ (1823)
Robert Peel ‘A moral necessity’ (1829)
Thomas Macaulay ‘Renew the youth of the state’ (1831)
Robert Peel ‘The dangers which menace states’ (1831)
Henry Brougham ‘Reject not this bill!’ (1831)
Thomas Macaulay ‘A matter of shame and remorse’ (1833)
Richard Cobden ‘You are the gentry of England’ (1845)
Benjamin Disraeli ‘The cause of the people, the cause of England’ (1846)
Sir Robert Peel ‘I cannot charge myself with having taken any course
inconsistent with Conservative principles’ (1846)
Benjamin Disraeli ‘I suffer, and I see no hope’ (1849)
Henry Palmerston ‘The strong arm of England’ (1850)
Benjamin Disraeli ‘England does not love coalitions’ (1852)
William Gladstone ‘A Budget… which may peril our safety’ (1852)
John Bright ‘I am told indeed that the war is popular’ (1854)
John Bright ‘The Angel of Death has been abroad throughout the land’
(1855)
John Bright ‘If all other tongues are silent, mine shall speak’ (1861)
John Bright ‘A mighty fabric of human bondage’ (1862)
William Gladstone ‘You cannot fight against the future’ (1866)
Benjamin Disraeli ‘Sanitas sanitatum, omnia sanitas’ (1872)
Benjamin Disraeli ‘The issue is not a mean one’ (1872)
William Gladstone ‘God speed the right’ (1879)
William Gladstone ‘Remember the rights of the savage’ (1879)
William Gladstone ‘Liberty for ourselves, Empire over the rest of mankind’
(1879)
William Gladstone ‘The blessed ends of prosperity and justice, liberty and
peace’ (1879)
William Gladstone ‘The most inexpressible calamity’ (1883)
THE AGE OF LINCOLN
Chief Seattle ‘On the Red Man’s trail’ (1855)
William Lloyd Garrison ‘Man above all institutions!’ (1854)
Abraham Lincoln ‘The monstrous injustice of slavery’ (1854)
Abraham Lincoln ‘A house divided against itself cannot stand’ (1858)
Abraham Lincoln ‘I have labored for and not against the Union’ (1858)
John Brown ‘The blood of millions’ (1859)
Abraham Lincoln ‘Let us have faith that right makes might’ (1860)
Jefferson Davis ‘A final adieu’ (1861)
Abraham Lincoln ‘My feeling of sadness at this parting’ (1861)
Abraham Lincoln ‘We are not enemies, but friends’ (1861)
Edward Everett ‘A new bond of union’ (1863)
Abraham Lincoln ‘Government of the people, by the people, for the people’
(1863)
Abraham Lincoln ‘With malice toward none’ (1865)
Chief Joseph ‘I will fight no more’ (1877)
Henry W. Grady ‘Fields that ran red with human blood in April were green
with the harvest in June’ (1886)