The Columbian Orator: Containing a Variety of Original and Selected Pieces, Together with Rules, Calculated to Improve Youth and Others in the Ornamental and Useful Art of EloquenceThe Columbian Orator, Caleb Bingham's classic work of 1797, contains both the oratory of the American Founding Fathers alongside imagined speeches from gifted orators of past epochs. Exceptional both for its contents and greater impact upon the fledgling society of the United States, this compendium of fine speech carries great historical and cultural value. As well as American speeches, this collection contains historic addresses from Europe, ranging back to ancient Rome. From about 1800 to 1820 it was recited and taught widely in schools across the US, instilling the importance of both patriotic pride in the new nation and the value of eloquent speaking. Bingham hoped to create a new generation of passionate American speakers, that leadership in the future would carry a wellspring of honed rhetorical talent from which to draw. Notably, several entries in this collection articulate opposition to slavery, which at the time was legal and widely practiced in the USA. It discusses the lack of ethics enslavement entails, thereby capturing the hearts and inspiring the-then fledgling abolitionist movement of America. Bingham's work was paid tribute in later decades by talented speakers such as Frederick Douglass, who read this book many times as an enslaved child, and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who authored the famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. |
From inside the book
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... genius . And to how great a perfection he arrived in his action , under all these disadvantages , by his inde- fatigable diligence and application , is evident from the confession of his great adversary and rival in oratory , Eschines ...
... genius , could not fail of making very complete orators . Though even after they came to appear in public , they did not lay aside the custom of declaiming . The influence of sounds , either to raise or allay our passions , is evident ...
... genius could design , or art construct . To cultivate elo- quence , then , is to improve the noblest faculties of our nature , the richest talents with which we are entrusted . A more convincing proof of the dignity and importance of ...
... genius and eloquence demand our veneration and applause ; yet , like stars when the sun appears , they are lost in the superior blaze of the in- comparable Demosthenes . His story is well known i and his example affords the greatest ...
... genius might the plan pursue . I , ( can you pardon my presumption ? ) I , No wit , no genius , yet for once will try . Various Various the papers , various wants produce , The wants 46 THE COLUMBIAN ORATOR . Paper, a Poem FRANKLIN.
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